Protocol.
Today marks another milestone in the history of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, as I welcome you all to the national flag-off ceremony of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre taking place here at the NSCDC National Headquarters, Sauka, Abuja.
No nation can achieve sustainable development in the face of widespread insecurity of lives and properties. The various cases of insecurity that stem from high profile crimes, perpetrated through transnational syndication and racketeering, have continuously posed threats to the survival of nations. Nigeria’s political history has been replete with various forms of violent insecurity challenges ranging from the civil war, election related mayhem, riots and protests, militancy, insurgency and herdsmen and farmers clashes. However, the rise of Boko-haram sect has created a new dimension to Nigeria’s insecurity problems. The main ideological objective of this violent extremist group is strangely, to target the elimination of western education in Nigeria. The negative operations of this group against education became glaring following the abduction of 276 students of Government Girls College, Chibok. Following afterwards were several other cases of attacks of several other secondary schools with cases of kidnapping of teachers and students.
There were also cases of killing of students and their teachers. Bombs were brazenly detonated in school assemblies, destroying the lives of many students and teachers such as the case of the Yobe school attack while school buildings were burnt, hindering teaching and learning. Intelligence also revealed cases of dormitory raping, though several other attacks remained unreported. Statistics however shows 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 negative effect on teaching and learning thereby reversing our sustainable national development efforts.
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. Accordingly, in the consideration for a multi-sectorial working group, the NSCDC has been made the lead Agency with the mandate to host the National Safe Schools Response and Coordination Centre. Following this responsibility, I immediately convened a Technical Committee composed of personnel of the NSCDC and consultants to develop strategies for the effective and efficient implementation of the National Plan on Safe Schools across the country. The committee has been working assiduously towards the production of a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for this national project.
The Standard Operating Procedure is divided into eight sections as follows (i) preamble;( ii) brief history of the National Safe Schools Programme; (iii) purpose of the document; iv) guiding principles; (v) reporting, referral and case information management; (vi) responsibilities for prevention and response, detailing the role of the NSCDC, the role of sister organizations. health and medical care, psycho-social care, security and safety, legal and judicial support, working with the community on prevention and response; (vii) coordination involving Technical Advisory Committee, command structure and coordination meetings; and (viii) Monitoring and Evaluation mechanisms. Soon after the national flag-off ceremony, we shall immediately initiate the various processes leading to the stakeholders workshop to validate the Standard Operating Procedure for this project to allow for smooth operations of the National Safe Schools Programme in Nigeria. Consequently, capacity building programmes for programme coordinators at the State levels and sub- national levels will commence alongside with programmes that will target the psycho-social care of various communities as already identified from the results of vulnerability studies conducted earlier.
At this juncture, I want to thank the Federal Government of Nigeria for this onerous task given to the NSCDC. I appreciate the Federal Ministry of Finance for ensuring appropriate provisions to enable the smooth take off of this critical national security assignment. I welcome all the representatives of the Military, Police, DSS as well as other sister and supporting agencies to this historical ceremony. We are optimistic that working together, we shall make our schools safe and secure for uninterruptible teaching and learning in line with Sustainable Development Goals. As I end my remarks, I warmly welcome you all to today’s flag-off ceremony of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre.
I thank you for your attention.