Former senator representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Senator Shehu Sani, has claimed that over 10,000 schools in the North have closed due to kidnapping and terrorism.
He made this known at Arewa House, Kaduna during the 15th Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture on Girl Child Education, organised by the National Association of Seadogs/Pyrate Confraternity (NAS/PC).
Senator Sani noted that “Most of those who are engaged in banditry and terrorism today are young people in their 20s and 30s. If we had provided them the education they needed, they wouldn’t have carried arms and been attacking people.”
“I’m calling on the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as far as I’m concerned, to invest in education, security and agriculture. These are the basic things.”
“If we want to get the issue of security and Education right in the North, we need to be serious about the issue of education.
“Right in this Arewa House,this is where Sardauna of Sokoto lived, where he was killed in 1966, where the North was founded.
“During his time, he provided facilities and resources to educate the generation of leaders who took over power. He was selfless and sacrificed all he had.
“The public schools that produced some of the best brains in Nigeria are schools we cannot take our children to now. Public primary schools have been destroyed. Public secondary schools have been destroyed and public education too.
“From a little research I conducted, over 10,000 schools are closed due to banditry and terrorism in the Northern region.
“And then, you can see, most of those who were presidents, governors, senators, captains of industries, all benefited from public education. If Northern Nigeria wants to get it right,it must invest in education.
“The schools that produced the best brains in Nigeria are uninhabitable today. They are no longer conducive for learning. We have seen how kidnapping and terrorism destroyed public education in Nigeria.
“Look at what happened to girls at Federal Government College Yauri. Look at what happened to young girls at a college in Zamfara State. Look at what happened even in Kaduna State today. Terrorism has become a serious problem. As far as education in Nigeria is concerned, we need to get things right and we have to do it now.
“The government of President Tinubu, as far as I’m concerned, what we need now is education, security and investment in agriculture. These are the basic things. I want to make this categorically clear; it is the right of people to criticise the government, to express their opinion.
“But the North must not use sectionalism and sentiment. We’ve seen how eight years of Buhari were wasted. Almost all the security apparatuses of this country were headed by Northerners.
“Trillions of Naira were pumped into defence and security, which never led to security in this part of the country. This is part of what this part of this country is today.
“People now pay taxes and levies to terrorists before they can be allowed to go to their farms. There are parts of the state today where rural dwellers call on terror groups to protect them from other terrorists. So you can see how this country is gradually collapsing. What is right should be done.
“We should support the Service Chiefs. We should support the National Security Adviser. They should do whatever they can to secure this country. The use of Northern sentiment or regional sentiment would not help because we had the opportunity to get it right and we failed to do it,” he said.
Senator Sani commended the National Association of Seadogs for organising the programme in Kaduna, which he described as timely, considering the state of education in the North.
