As schools prepare to resume for a new academic session, many pupils may remain out of school as no fewer than 615 schools have remained shut in some troubled states owing to attacks by terrorists in different parts of the country.
Many northern states have come under attack by terrorists with many people, including children, killed and several others kidnapped. The most hit states are Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina and Niger, while Sokoto, Kebbi, Bauchi, Plateau and Taraba states have not been spared by the attackers.
The disturbing rate of out-of-school children came to the fore again on Thursday when a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, in partnership with Global Education Monitoring Report, showed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria had risen to 20 million from about 12.5 million recorded in 2021.
This has sparked calls for an urgent intervention by the government to arrest the situation so that the pupils can return to school.
Findings by Saturday PUNCH indicated that many schools were shut across the affected northern states.
Between 2014 and now, there have been mass abductions in several states, with over 1,000 pupils kidnapped. Even though most of the pupils have been freed, there are fears that there is still apprehension in some parts of the region over the safety of schools and the pupils.
Some of the major school abductions include the April 14, 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State; another 300 pupils from Damasak, Borno State; 110 pupils from Dapchi, Yobe State; 344 pupils from Kankara, Katsina State; 276 pupils from Jangebe, Zamfara State; 140 students from Chikun in Kaduna State; and 102 pupils from Yauri, Kebbi State.
In Kaduna State, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union, which is an umbrella body for the people of Southern Kaduna, an area severely hit by insecurity, said about 500 schools, mostly primary schools, had either been shut down, abandoned or destroyed as a result of the unrelenting attacks on communities in the area since 2019.
The union’s Public Relations Officer, Mr Luka Biniyat, in an interview with one of our correspondents said in all the 200 communities sacked by bandits and armed herdsmen in Southern Kaduna, all the primary and secondary schools had been closed.
“In my village, Zamandabo, Zangon Kataf Local Government Area, which was attacked twice last year, the Day Secondary School there and the two primary schools remain shut down,” he said, adding that some schools had been abandoned for over five years as a result of the attacks and kidnapping, especially in the Chikun and Kachia local government areas.
He added, “The villages that confronted the situation and refused to vacate soon found that no teacher was willing to go to the schools to teach. So, we
