No fewer than seven schools in Kebbi State had been shutdown indefinitely in the aftermath of the attack on Federal Government College (FGC), Birnin Yauri, by suspected bandits, according to Alhaji Isah Arzika, State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT)
Arzika stated that those affected were schools located on the frontlines of the areas prone to attacks by suspected bandits.
He said that the government had directed all school principals to close any school which they believed were not safe, adding that police and vigilantes had also been deployed to the schools for monitoring and protection.
“On these proactive measures, as you all know, we are part of the system. Because Principals are teachers, all the Directors at the Board are also teachers. It is the decision that we all took that is affecting us.
“Government has given us an order and option to take any necessary action as far as our schools are concerned. That we can close those schools which we think are not safe and prone to attacks in the areas close to the forest.”
The NUT chairman assured that they had already closed those frontline schools, describing such a move as a proactive measure to guard against a recurrence of the incident similar to that of FGC Yauri.
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“I am not talking about only boarding schools, any school that is on the frontline and it is not safe, we would just ask the students to pack and go home, pending the time the situation normalises.”
“Before now, the state government had recruited large number of vigilante members to look over our schools and we are very much satisfied with what the government has done.
“Some of these schools that I am talking about have policemen attached to them, honestly, we are satisfied with government actions”, he said.