OPINION:

SCHOOLS CLOSURE: WHOSE AGENDA IN THE COUNTY

By Bala B. Bitrus

Violent and criminal non-state actors in their different names, shapes and nomenclature have muscled up to hold Nigeria to ransom for close to two decades.

Such bands in their various strands have persistently been swooping on the Nigerian state and people with their deafening blood letting and chilling, murderous activities across many states and localities especially in the northern states.

The country is bleeding from the senseless pogrom and activities of these criminal elements who have been instilling morbid fear in the psychy of almost all citizens.

Nigeria is under a siege. This is the most unfortunate part of the new reality of our country. The most saddest part of our stark reality is that those in authority are afraid to admit that Nigeria is under a terrible bondage.

Armed insurgent groups like the Boko Haram, ISWAP, Lakurawa, and the likes are winning steadily, holding up their arms high in the air in jubilation, with their arrogant display of brute force as they smile often into their hideouts and covens in arrogance and provocation after committing hieneuos crimes against humanity.

Take it or leave it, terrorism, armed banditry, and kidnapping are closing up on us briskly and in defiance repeatedly. These grave challenges have risen up against us, swirling and whirling on our communities and people from rural communities up into the urban centres. No where appears to be safe.

The country should not continue to shy away from the truth of the matter. These  bands of violent non-state actors have launched war on us. It is therefore foolhardy for anyone to continue to think things are normal in Nigeria.

The country is bleeding whether or not the government and those in authorities accept it or not, Nigeria is at war.

Whilst Boko Haram, ISWAP Lakurawa or kidnappers may not be in every nook and crannies of Nigeria, but the steams of banditry on our land and people are confirmation of unprovoked war on Nigerians.

Their senseless blood letting and chilling activities resonate every now and then often heard far from where the attacks are carried out. In every corridor of Nigeria today, tales of woe that sends fears and sleeplessness to almost all of us have become common and recurring decimals.

Nigerians now live in fear and worsening trepidation. Towns and cities, villages and communities now live in shivers. No one is comfortable anywhere in urban and rural areas alike.

In any country where such violent non-state actors rise up to hold a people hostage like it has become the case in Nigeria, such a state gradually subsume it’s power and authority and gradually become a toothless bulldog.

Since after the attack on Chibok girls’ school, similar attacks on schools in Goza, Borno, Kaduna, Kebbi, Niger, Zamfara, and lately Oyo have continued almost every year. The attacks are calculated, deliberate and on purpose.

Where a people are frightened or denied freedom to education, such people soon become blind and steadily retrogress. That is the objective and mission of the Boko Haram, ISWAP and Lakurawa bands of terrorists.

Anywhere a people can not be free and be at liberty to engage in their economic mainstay, sprawling poverty, hunger and malnutrition streams within their rank and file to set the stage for decadence and backwardness.

A land where a people can not move at will to commune with their kit and kins, friends and fellows, do business and to freely spin the wheel of economic progress, life for them becomes stunted, unbearable, brute, unproductive and unpleasant.

Such have become scenarios in most communities in parts of Nigeria today. Nigerians are gradually being boxed and caged to die and be wasted.

This is why something is fundamentally wrong with our country and our security architecture. In our very own eyes, Boko Haram and other violent terrorist forces have closed down our shops and marketplaces, shut down communities, chased and killed worshippers, kidnapped school pupils and students, burnt down police stations, overran custodial centres, chased out courts operatives and ransacked palaces and traditional stools in parts of the country with ease.

Killings and destruction instigated and masterminded by snipers, armed foot soldiers and suicide squads of Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Lakurawa have become common recurring newsreel.

In their near two decades of deadly onslaughts in parts of the country, these criminal elements have killed hundreds of thousands of souls and caused the wastage of billions of naira worth in business and economic stades.

Despite counter offensives by governments and community based initiatives, the heat is on the increase. The pain is widening as the insurgents are hitting harder and becoming more daring, more reckless and disrespectful in their daredevil activities.

Schools and other places of learning have been their targets to kill and kidnap their targets, (pupils and students, teachers and school heads) to drive home their mission.

Their aim is to instill morbid fear on students and parents, stop knowledge acquisition and thus cause retrogression of the country. A nation without education, is a nation that lays in ruins without a good future.

The attacks on educational institutions especially primary and secondary schools may be the last straw to break Nigeria and it’s long drawn lame duck approach to fighting insurgency.

Closing down schools by authorities in response to banditry, kidnapping and attacks on schools is an expression of government’s weakness and it’s inability to face the enemy headlong to redress the threats on the country’s sovereignty.

Shutting down schools and directing pupils and students to stay at home is akin to running away from a problem. Any country that chickens out at any challenge, lives to be a slave. Closing down schools in the face of terrorists attacks translates to subsuming to the vision of Boko Haram and all its offshoots.

Instead of closing down schools, the Nigerian government should go offensive to squarely stand up against the challenge. Nigeria should deploy full arsenals against the terrorizing bandits.

Closing down schools by authorities is reactionary. Such reaction amounts to capitulating to the whims and objective mission of the terrorist forces.

The main responsibility of any government is to defend and protect its citizenry and it’s territorial space. Government should not cowardly chicken out in the face of any threat especially from an unorganized, untrained and breakable bands of terrorists.

Closing down schools is a defeatist’s strategy and a demonstration of weakness and a tactless reaction in the face of a daring security challenge.

Closing down schools favours Boko Haram and all its affiliates and offshoots whose agenda is to drown Nigeria.

Governments at states and at the centre should roll out their might and resources to collectively guard institutions of learning to protect and defend all inhabitants of such shared communities and environment without let nor hindrance.

It is a big shame and insult for any government to surrender to criminal bands in whatever guise they present themselves.

Only a failed state can subsume its authority, power and supremacy to a group of corrupt thieves and criminals.

BALA B. BITRUS is a Veteran of the Pen Profesion who writes from Minna.