NUT advocates community policing to tackle attacks on schools

As the rate of attacks on schools increase nationwide and with students and school workers abducted for ransom, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has again called on the federal and state governments to adopt community policing as an effective way to tackle the menace.

The secretary-general of the union, Mike Ene, noted that schools from primary to university levels have increasingly become targets for bandits and kidnappers, seeing them as grounds to get cheap money.

He said government needs to wake up and make safety of students and teachers a priority.

He said it was high time the government declared a state of emergency in security in and around schools country-wide.

The NUT chief said it was unfortunate that some of the Chibok school girls, for example, could still be in captivity 10 years after they were forcefully taken away from their hostels.

He said aside from the direct effect of armed attacks and mass abduction of students, the situation is also increasing the number of out-of-school children, particularly in the northern states.

The NUT chief lamented that many parents, especially in the north, no longer want to enroll their wards in school for fear of being kidnapped.

Ene, therefore, re-emphasised the need for government to introduce communitypolicing to effectively tame the menace.

He said people at the grassroots would be better at policing their communities than outsiders, who may not be familiar with the terrain.