After several attacks on boarding schools in Katsina State, attacks in which hundreds of students were kidnapped by armed bandits, the leaders of the state have in their wisdom, decided to ramp up security in schools. Therefore, in addition to extra guards (and security posts) and prayers, vulnerable Katsina State schools will also be getting dogs.
If you were on Twitter last week, you may have already seen a clip of the TV interview in which Katsina State Commissioner for Education, Dr. Badamasi Lawal Charanchi, in response to the question of whether or not the dogs have been trained, said that there was no need to. Ha! Dogs, according to him, have the innate ability – by virtue of being dogs – to smell danger. They can sense kidnappers and bandits and warn the students just because they are dogs, no training required. The man was not joking. So, obviously Charanchi thinks that the ‘police’ dogs that sniff out drugs and the foodstuff, we are sometimes tempted to smuggle across international borders, are able to do it because of their “innate ability?” And if the dogs are like any of those in the video accompanying the commissioner’s interview, loud bingos who barked a lot, they are bound to be nothing but an annoying distraction from classes. How are students supposed to concentrate and learn with incessant barking from untrained dogs that don’t know enough to keep still until they “smell the danger” the commissioner is sure they can? Na who do us this thing? Sadly, the deployment of untrained mongrels to schools and expecting them to do the job that in any serious society, their canine peers are rigorously trained for could be a metaphor for Nigeria. Clueless people in positions they are grossly unqualified for. Example: this commissioner. If Nigeria were human, she’d be like that tailor who thinks they can make any outfit for anyone without taking proper measurements and without any guide at all. I had a tailor like that make an outfit for me once and the result was disastrous.
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Disaster is also what Katsina State is courting by implementing this harebrained scheme of unleashing these ekukes in schools as a security strategy. In a newspaper interview, Charanchi said he was advised by security agencies, “and we find it expedient because of the current security situation. Even most of the police stations and rich men have dogs to facilitate and assist security and the vigilante groups.” Biko, oga Charanchi, which rich man do you know that has an untrained dog at his gate for security? How are these dogs supposed to know who the students are and who the intruders are? Pray tell, how they can tell the difference? Assuming that these dogs are attack dogs (and not all dogs are), how can they, without any training, tell the difference between genuine visitors to the school and those with ulterior motives? And therefore those to attack?
Furthermore, have these dogs been vaccinated? Under normal circumstances, I’d assume that these dogs – though unqualified to work as guard dogs – are up to date with their shots, but I have learned when it comes to our obodo Nigeria, not to take even the most obvious things for granted. There is no reason to think that a government to which it makes absolute sense to use untrained dogs for security will think of ensuring that the dogs are vaccinated or are up to date with their shots. It is the kind of fact they might be careless about. My fear is that at some point, a student or multiple students would be bitten by these hungry-looking dogs and then what? Their families would be given “sorry” to chop and life will go on , completely unchanged for those in charge of this rubbish.
That Charanchi and whoever else encouraged him to send bingos into schools for protection did not even consider these questions says a lot about their lack of willingness to invest in keeping students in their state safe. And they are not willing because they do not have a horse in the race. They have no skin in the game. Their children are most likely not in any of the affected boarding schools. They are a cruel lot. It is only the wicked who play with the welfare and security of children in this manner.
It is almost certain that we haven’t had the last of the student abductions in Katsina (and elsewhere). One of the fall-outs of these abductions (even when they end with no fatalities) is that some parents are discouraged from sending their children to school. And in a region with low literacy rates – in a 2012 UNESCO study, Katsina was ranked 35th out of 36 states – this is a devastating consequence. I do not blame the parents. The trade-off for an education does not seem fair or sensible. There is an Ibo saying that when the corpse of a stranger is being carried, one thinks it is a bundle of firewood. The students whose security the Katsina State government is playing with, are probably not kin to any of the decision makers. But what these leaders seem to be forgetting is that eventually, the chickens come home to roost. And when they do, they – the leaders – will not be spared
