By; JACOB ONJEWU DICKSON
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education (Basic and Secondary), Senator Ibrahim Geidam has assured parents and guardians in communities in the North West and North East that the incessant cases of abduction of school children by bandits and hoodlums will soon be over.
The lawmaker who had an interactive session with the media on Thursday after the Joint Committees on Education public hearing in the National Assembly (NASS), said that with the commitment of some international and local agencies under the aegis of Save School Initiative, kidnapping of children in affected areas would soon be a thing of the past.
Geidam who represents Borno South Senatorial District at the National Assembly, said following the abduction of about 276 girls from Chibok Secondary School in Borno, the Save the School Initiative was set up to see how schools could be made less vulnerable to kidnappers.
He stressed that the abduction of about 110 school girls from Dapchi in Yobe worsened the climate of fear in the North.
Senator Geidam who lamented that the actions of the bandits have led to the closure of primary and secondary schools in Zamfara and other states in the North West also appealed to the Federal Government to send more troops to the affected areas so that banditry and its effect would be totally eradicated.
Shedding more light, Senator Geidam, explained that the Save the School Initiative (SSI) actions and programmes would be thoroughly scrutinized and recommendations would be made to the body as to how the SSI could help bring assistance to the affected areas in the states.
“We are going to check the records to see which donor agencies have contributed funds to the SSI and we are going to see how the funds were utilised. Furthermore, we shall also look at how much the Federal Government committed into the funds.
“We have already given them, SSI, donor agencies such as Unicef and Federal Government a document on what should be In each locality where banditry is rife .These communities were the ones that drew up the programs as such it reflected what they want to be done.
“Furthermore, it is encapsulated in the document that the Federal Government should provide more security personnel for SSI and the affected regions”, the lawmaker said.
