A renowned scholar, Professor Mansur Usman Malumfashi, has expressed concern that spate of kidnapping and insecurity are discouraging parents in the North from taking their children to school.
Malumfashi, a Professor of Education of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, (ATBU), Bauchi, who made the remark in an interview in Bauchi yesterday, warned that the development was capable of retarding education in the region.
‘It is alarming; because here we are today in a situation where the school system is disrupted, in the sense that parents are not willing to take their children to some schools because they are not safe,’ he observed.
‘People will prefer to have their children stay at home than to go to school and be kidnapped. The North is far behind in terms of western education. We are trying to catch up and now look at this situation retarding progress in that area”.
The scholar, who is Sarkin Malaman Galadiman Katsina, argued that foreign direct investment where people can come and invest will be impossible if there is no security.
‘There is an organic relationship between education and insecurity and business. We must have that level of sadly and self-confidence for people to come and do business and for education to take place,’ he opined.
Malumfashi stated that learning cannot take place in an atmosphere of chaos and insecurity, saying, “There must be a conducive atmosphere for learning to place and under insecurity that conducive atmosphere is impossible”.
He called for synergy between governors and the security personnel, the civil society organisations for the desired results. He said, “You cannot expect one governor in a geopolitical zone saying I am going for negotiation and the other one is saying I am not going for negotiation; the other one will say I will pay the ransom and the other one will say I will not pay a ransom”.
“Military expeditions are usually accomplished with diplomatic undertones. If the diplomatic undertones will achieve results, let’s try it but if the diplomatic undertones cannot achieve results then we must go on the military operation and certainly it has to be concerted.
“Concerted in the sense that the Air Force in the air, the Army on the ground and the Intelligence and so on put together, must be seen to be working together to achieve one objective; otherwise, if we are chasing them from Katsina, they will move to Zamfara; if you chase them from there, they will move to Katsina, and we will just be going in circles. That is why we are not achieving the desire results”, he emphasised.
