By Reporters
The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has assured that it would continue to provide the needed security in schools in Ondo and Osun States to ensure a safe teaching and learning environment.
The Corps pledged to collaborate with other stakeholders in the Safe Schools Initiative to ensure its full implementation.
Following incessant attacks on schools, and kidnapping of students and staff by suspected bandits, the National Safe Schools project was initiated to provide safe learning and teaching environments for pupils and students.
DSC Aidamenbor Daniel, the Public Relations Officer(PRO), NSCDC Command in Ondo State, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) in Akure said both students and educational facilities in the state are safe.
Daniel said that the command had put measures in place to protect schools from attacks and also trained host communities on how to support the protection of schools in their domain and respond to attacks.
According to him, most of these schools are in the rural areas and are vulnerable to attacks.
“They are without perimeter fence, no guard and most of them are used as thoroughfare by the community dwellers.
“What we do is to train the school community on how to protect themselves and respond to attacks. This is being done by the command’s female squad under the Safe Schools Initiative.
“This is because we can’t safeguard all the schools conventionally. There is no way we can do man to man deployment, we don’t have the resources.
“What is being done is constant patrol and visitation to schools by the female squad of the command to educate the school community on safety procedure.
“The state government is expected to key into the programme by providing us with vehicles,” he said.
According to him, a letter has been written to the state government through the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education to provide accommodation for the state’s Safe School Response Centre where all schools in the state are expected to register online.
“The response centre is ICT driven that will help to monitor and provide real-time response.
“Recently, the South-West commands of the NSCDC concluded a training on safe schools for selected personnel at the headquarters of 2 Division Nigerian Army, Ibadan, Oyo State,” he said.
Also speaking with NAN, Mr Samuel Ojo, the Public Relations Officer(PRO) of Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, said that the school management accorded priority to the security of lives and properties within and around the institution.
Ojo said that the institution is collaborating with security agencies “in ensuring that activities within and around the polytechnic go unhindered”.
“Security is given top priority to ensure the safety of lives of students and properties. The management ensures constant police patrol; internal security agents are always at work and students paramilitary forces are also at work to supply information.
“The office of the chief security officer of the school( CSO) mounts surveillance at all entries and illumination is always guaranteed,” he said.
Ojo said the institution had keyed into the Safe Schools project launched by the Federal Government in 2022.
“The Safe Schools Initiative launched by the Federal Government in 2022 is ongoing in the institution and it is at an advance stage.
“The state government is also not leaving any stone unturned in this direction. The Ondo State Security Network Agency otherwise known as Amotekun Corps, with its strategies, has helped so much to nip insecurity in the bud in the school’s environment,” he said.
In Osun, Mr Sunday Agboola, the NSCDC State Commandant, said that appropriate intelligence and coordinated quick response had helped in safeguarding schools in the state.
Agboola told NAN that the Safe School Project recently launched by the Federal Government had left the realm of being an initiative and has become a collective effort of all security agencies and local vigilantes in the state.
He also said that the state’s coordinating centre for the National Safe Schools project has been carrying out rigorous training on the standard practices for safety of schools in the state.
The NSCDC boss said the initiative is a preventive measure based on appropriate intelligence and a coordinated quick response service.
“This is the reason we go for rigorous training with all government owned security sister agencies in a bid to protect educational facilities across the state.
“Safe Schools project is not an enlightenment mission, neither is it a guard duty, but it is based on prevention by gathering of intelligence and quick response.
“Osun State has no record of attacks on school till date, but there is adequate structure in place to uncover and nip such plan in the bud,” he said.
Agboola said that special female squad was also inaugurated in 2022 for the protection of schools in the state and across the country.
“In Osun, the squad is quite effective. We have been sensitising the students on the need to speak out when learning environment is not conducive,” he said.
In his contribution, Prof. Bola Sholanke, of the department of Demography and Social Statistics, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, appealed to the Federal Government to give priority to the security situation in schools across the country.
Sholanke said the inauguration of the safe schools programme by the Federal Government was a good initiative but not well implemented.
“Whatever the government is planning for tertiary institutions is good in terms of principle, but the issue has always been bad execution.
“There is no doubt that all tertiary institutions need more policing to safeguard them.
“My expectation by now is that the university will be in possession of more new security vehicles to move round the campuses for security purposes.
“But I have not seen anything different apart from the security measures put in place by the university management,” he said.
Sholanke called on the government to engage professionals in providing information that can further improve the security system in the country.(NAN)