HURIWA tasks parents on home schooling for wards

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has charged parents to withdraw their children and wards from regular schools and embrace home schooling to stem abduction of pupils and students in the north.

It said the action would prompt the United Nations (UN) to prevail on the Nigerian government to take decisive actions on rising insecurity and constant kidnapping of Nigerian students.

In a statement issued by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, it accused the President Muhammadu Buhari administration of insensitivity, wondering why a government committed to its citizens’ welfare would care less, while bandits continue to kidnap children in schools.

“Do we need a soothsayer to tell us that this administration has lost control of the security situation in the country, especially with rising insecurity in the North?

“It does appear that Buhari is not bothered about the rising trend of abduction of schools children due to how the Federal Government attempted to pass the buck to states by claiming that kidnapping is a state affair,” the statement added.

HURIWA also accused government of pampering kidnappers, citing Muslim cleric, Ahmed Gumi’s countless meetings with bandits and terrorists and other government officials.

“The National Security Adviser (NSO) and Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, have consistently justified the fact that government is unwilling to prosecute the kidnappers but approve their pampering, as they continue to kidnap students in various schools,” it said.

Citing cases of kidnapping of school children in recent times, HURWIA, therefore, urged parents to withdraw their wards from schools and enrol them for home tutorials for effective monitoring.

“On May 31, 2021, an armed gang abducted scores of students from an Islamic school in Niger State. Some 200 children were in school at the time of attack. The abduction came a day after 14 students were freed from a university in the North West after 40 days in captivity, among other abductions in the country,” the statement added.