The National Schools Security and Emergency Response Centre was on Monday flagged off at the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) headquarters in Abuja with the mandate to ensure that schools across the country are secure.
While speaking at the flag-off ceremony, the Commandant General of the Corps, Ahmed Audi, said there was a need to take proactive measures to stop the growing number of out-of-school students across the country as a result of attacks on schools by terrorists.
He said statistics show, “that about 2, 295 teachers have been killed and 19,000 others displaced in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States between 2009 and 2018 alone while an estimate of 1, 500 schools had been destroyed since 2014, with over 1,280 casualties among teachers and students.
“These violent attacks have a negative effect on teaching and learning thereby reversing our sustainable national development efforts.
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“In view of the importance of education and human capital development towards overall national development, it has become expedient for the Federal Government to deploy extraordinary measures to tackle the spate of attacks on school facilities in Nigeria.
“Such effort is the commitment and endorsement by the Federal Government of Nigeria to ensure that all Nigerian schools become safe and secured for uninterrupted teaching and learning activities.”
The NSCDC has been made the lead agency with the mandate to host the National Safe Schools Response and Coordination Centre.
A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been designed for the project, Audi disclosed.
Speaking at the occasion, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said the government was determined to make the schools safe for students and teachers again.
Represented at the occasion by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Shuaibu Belgore, Aregbesola said the initiative would place additional demands on the NSCDC, adding that more personnel would be employed across the country to meet the manpower need to execute the project.
On his part, the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Agba, said education was essential to the success of every one of the 17 sustainable development goals, assuring that the FG would finance the project.
“The Federal government has already committed to the financing of safe schools through the National Plan on Financing Safe Schools,” he said.
Agba also vowed to ensure the prompt release of budgeted funds for the implementation of the programme.
Also, the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), pledged its support to the initiative, adding that insecurity in schools had become a national emergency.
The Chairman of the Forum, Aminu Tambuwal, represented by the Secretary of the Forum, Abdullateef Shitu, said all states of the federation are ready to partner with the federal government for the success of the project.
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