 Education is under attack in Nigeria, with mass school abductions being reported every other month. And it's at a time like this the country joined the rest of the world yesterday to mark the International Day to Protect Education from Attack, plus TV Africa's Ngoziqa Ahoyhsi reports. It's a few days to the resumption of a new academic year, and the management of Reddit and school is putting things in place to welcome students back. The academic coordinator Adeola Adecerono tells me that one of the major concerns is the safety of students due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The children's welfare is of importance to us, so the first thing we're going to do is ensure that the children come with their COVID pack, which will contain their face mask and their hand sanitizers. COVID-19 aside, it's pretty easy to go to school in Lagos, where public basic education is free, and private schools, although relatively expensive, are accessible. The concerns are different in Northern Nigeria, where school enrollment is low and attacks on schools are increasing. Education is very accessible in Lagos states because if you look everywhere, by time you move to one street to another, you see a school. But in the Northern states, due to the banditry like you mentioned, a lot of schools have had to shut down because of the kidnapping and the insurgency and the banditry. No fewer than 1,400 students have been kidnapped from their schools in Northern Nigeria since March 2020. According to SBM Intelligence, 17 teachers have been adopted, 16 people killed and more than 200 million are paid in ransom since then. As a result of that, some states have been forced to close schools. Confident McHurry is the security analyst at SBM Intelligence Lagos. Provide better security for the schools in these areas who need to root out insecurity in these particular areas and bring government close to the people. But right now, it is seeming like an off field task. Honestly, without security, education cannot continue. It can't happen. It's not rocket science. It's evident that education in Nigeria is under attack and as the world marks this day, parents, educationists and every concerned citizen wishes authority can do better to protect our schools. Education can be a door opener and social leveler. For Plus TV Africa, Ngozika, Ohio, Chessie. Thank you, Ngozika, for that report and like it was rightly mentioned, Thursday, September 9th was the international day to protect education from attack. To commemorate that day, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator, Edward Callan, put out a speech condemning the incident attacks on schools in Nigeria. He noted that 1.3 million children have been impacted by the attacks on schools in the country. Jigda Johnson, chief lecturer in Nigeria Institute of Journalism, thanks for joining us again. It's a pleasure to be with you. My first question is, we know these are almost a reality, like a daily reality in Nigeria, the attack on school children. But why does it seem that we need foreigners or do we need foreigners to tell us to sit up before we do? Well, that means that the future is destroyed. That's the stark reality because if the educational sector is truncated as a result of security challenges, as a result of incoherent government policies, and as a result of human factors that could be addressed by decisive leadership, the future is already truncated. That's just the reality. For example, in Cardinal State, third time has been cancelled, the students have been directed to resume on September 12, and in that same state, we saw a situation whereby people that operate private business in terms of investing in the educational sector, left alone when you are faced with security challenges of boundary tree and kidnapping of their students. You saw the figure of which your correspondence provided. You took a throne and two million pedas, as well as also is the future of the country that is at stake, because you turn up a child today, and then you secure the future. Refuse to turn up a child today, and you destroy the future, so we don't need any suit here to let us know that this factor will affect our economy. We affect our nation, both from political, economic, psychological perspective. You'll recall that in Nigeria as a result of the south being advanced in education, more than the north, we created a different type of system in terms of quota system, in terms of educationally disadvantaged, in order to close the gap between the north and the south. And then during the course of the week, we had the governor of Cardinal State saying that as a result of these advantages, this special treatment that I've been given to not our students, it has encouraged leasiness and the rest of it, and with what we are witnessing in the north, where schools, calendar have been, have been arbitrarily consued, some have been truncated. The gap between the north and the south in terms of educational set-up will still, will be wider in the near, in the near, in the near term. So we don't need the foreigner to tell us. The factors are there, the indices are there to let us know that we need to do something urgently. There should be a critical intervention. But the unfortunate thing of what we are witnessing, even in our newspaper reviewer time, is that these set-ups have been left alone for the private set-up, and these set-ups have been, have been left alone for private individuals to take care of their security when school children are kidnapped. It's there for the parents you will call in one of our programs, whereby they were sending a, a motorcycle to the, to the bandits, they were giving them rice, they were giving them maggi to feed their children, and the governor said that he's not ready to pay any money, and then the, if they want they can come and kidnap the children, but the secret they withdrew is his son from public school. So that's, that's, that's the challenge. In your correspondent report, we saw that with compared leaders, take away private education, attended the public school, attended the public primary school, attended the public secondary school, attended the public university. Just imagine if those schools were not in place, what would have happened? Just imagine if I didn't have that opportunity to go to public school. And I'll give you this so that I allow you to ask another question. You know I attended primary school, primary three, primary four, and five in the afternoon in Lagos. I'm telling you in the 70s. My primary three, my primary four, were done in the afternoon. But when a large ill-attributed community became the governor of Lagos, it changed the entire system. So that was possible for every student to attend schools in the public. In actual sense, my senior brother attended schools in the evening. So there were morning sessions, there were afternoon sessions, there were evening sessions in our educational sector. If some people don't know that, when I tell my son about it, he said that it's not possible, and I told him it's possible. In other words, it's the reality of a time, but it was changed by constructing government policies. So imagine if they hadn't made investment in education. If the governors of Second Republic hadn't made direct investment in education, where would we find ourselves? I told my son, I said, if I have to pay what I'm paying for you to go to school, I will not go to school. And the situation is for many people in my generation. Many people in my generation, if we have to pay what we are paying for our children to go to school now, if I pay what I have to pay that, we won't go to school, we'll have land money to pay that. So even the schools that are available, they are expensive. Because government is playing leave service, all you need to do is to pay a visit to these schools and you see what is happening. It's sad. All right. Julie Johnson, one thing that I have tried to not accept is victory for terrorists. But seeing that we have this many children out of school, seeing that we have this many schools shut down across Northern Nigeria and other parts, we've also seen, of course, Nigeria's figures with regards out of school children and things like this will definitely add to those figures. Does this mean that the Nigerian government has lost in that aspect? It's clear. You know, if you look at different reports, Intervention Agency, UNESCO report, UNICEF report with respect to children out of school, you'll be shocked. Now, even the ones that are in school that you have managed to get in the school, they can't go to school. Allagatou issues a clear failure of government, of government, of government policy. Primary education, you see, when we talk about federalism, primary education should be left for the local government. That's, we need to, the resources from that should come, we should go straight to the local government so that we can, each local government can rule two piece at the only, they know the peculiarity of their various localities and they can meet up with that, without challenges. There's no doubt that it's been a failure of government in terms of its core responsibility, it was when children were kidnapped, when pupils and students were kidnapped, we had, but it meant, it meant no, there was no response from the government, it was like business as it was, it was just like in normal life, as far as government response is concerned. These people, they are not spirit. They are not people that cannot be trapped. They are people that can be trapped. They use what our intelligence community doing, not a single burden that we arrested, prosecuted for that means school people, at least we should be able to draw a red line to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. At this level, you can't come to this business, but what do we do? What do we do? We reward criminality. So when you reward criminality, it pays to, it pays to be a criminal in a lawless country that has no respect and dignity for human life, than for you to be someone that obeys, that obeys the law, and it's just, all you need to do is just to drive on the roads of our nation. Wherever you see, you see the law makers become the law breaker. You see governors, president and public officials that are meant to respect the sanctity and the dignity of human life. They will be driving against the traffic and they will be using siren to push you off the road. Now I have said it, if you want to really affect the educational sector, if you receive a servant and you're a public official, your children must go to public schools. They must go to public schools because you are serving the public and you are serving the public. Your children, you can't send, I, why should the president send a student to school abroad? Why should the governor send a student to a private school? If, why should the commissioner send the children to a private school? Does that make any sense? If you are serving the public, both you and your household should serve the public until we make it a requirement for every civil servant, for every public servant, both elected and appointed, to send their children to public schools. I can assure you that the public schools, the challenges we are having, we will still have it. I remember, I'll tell you this and I'm telling you for a fact, when I was the law school taken to Kano, why? Why was the law school cited in Kano? Just because Abacha's daughter wanted to go to law school. Why was the law school, the law school in Bwari? When Abuselam's daughter was going to the law school in Bwari, ask anybody, these are facts that can be investigated. We know who built the estate, we know when their children are going to schools, they know how to provide the security. So that's the step we need to take. Once we take those steps to insist and to ensure that the children of the as-of, the speaker of as-of-well, go to public school, the speaker, the children of the Senate president, go to public school. I can tell you that the security issues with the address. We are even talking about the security issues, not about the infrastructure. Go and look at the toilet facilities in the schools. Go and look at the laboratories of this school. Go and look at the staff room of this school. It is unbelievable. I was just talking about this. Jida Johnson, one of the concerns and concerns I've had over this issue of insecurity in schools is that they don't seem to be hearing from the president. They don't seem to see the president coming out to condemn this insecurity, this attack on our education in clear terms. I mean, we saw a statement from Edward Cowell, like I mentioned earlier. So do you think the president needs to step up and speak to Nigerians condemning this action? And for people who are clamoring for the president's voice, what impact do you think it might make to the fight against insecurity and the protection of our schools? Government is a system. And one of the challenges we have with our democracy is the personalization of public administration. Must the president speak at all times? You have various institutions of the state that should respond proactively. Who are those that are in charge of the security? You have this heterogeneous police. You have other agencies of government that could speak on behalf of the president. I don't accept the fact that when Nigerians said, oh, the president must speak, must he speak to every situation? If you don't speak, that's because you have personalized that office. So until the president speaks, obviously we wish for the body language of the president. No, it's a government. And in the government, there are various institutions. It's not about a personality. It's about the various institution. The minister of education is appointed by the president for him to be a spokesperson, to be his representative in the educational sector. So once the minister of education makes a statement, the statement becomes the statement of the federal government of Nigeria because the member of the federal executive council was a inspector general of police. But like you said, and which are agree with you, there has never been any condemnation from official cutters, not necessarily the president. But most importantly, from the president, in these regards, because of the incitement nature of it, that okay, it has gotten to my attention. But you know what, we have seen a passive approach by those in authority to issues affecting average Nigerians that people say, okay, let's wait for the president to speak. Let's, must you wait for them to speak? This is democracy. They must engage the citizenry. Unfortunately, they don't care about us. That's the reality. They don't, do they care about you? And I, that's why when they are sick, they go abroad to seek medical treatment. That's why when their children wants to go to school, they send their children to school abroad. You did, Johnson. And so, I think a lot of Nigerians would agree with your perspectives on public officials using public facilities. And that includes healthcare and education and infrastructure, some of all of that. Because if you cannot put yourself through that system, you wouldn't be able to understand what the people that you're serving are dealing with. And if you do not understand that when you fall sick, you're gonna go to the government hospital down the road, then you will not need to fix it for any reasons. You can't change the system, okay? Yeah, I want you to speak on, still on the out-of-school children. Can we also look back prior to the security challenges? Have this, has this challenge been building up from many years of poor funding and interest in the educational system in those parts of the country? In every part of the country. In every part of the country, I can tell you for a fact, the number of schools in my community, the community I lived in, I've lived in there, that's the community where my primary school is, that's the community where my secondary school is, that's the community where other schools are. And I can tell you for a fact, how many schools are in that local government and what have we done, if we're using legal state as an index to show reflection of what happens in the larger society. For example, in my own primary school, where was also the site of my secondary school. It's the same site that had my primary school and later my secondary school, has that same space, that same space that I used in 1974 to 1986, that's my primary school, that same space as five primary schools now, five, that same space as five primary schools, as two secondary schools. So you could see that we actually pay and leave service to it in terms of providing the basic infrastructure that is required for us to deal with the educational challenges that we have to increase enrollment, what's the ratio of teacher to student. So like you pointed out, it's a problem that has been developing over the years and it's cascading. When people talk about the standard of education, you know what happens because we don't have space and you can go and investigate this from Lagos to Cardinal to Carpenter to KB to Bouchie, to Biasa, you can go and investigate this. In public schools, children are not permitted to flee. You promote every one of them, beat the classes, where are you going to put the new ones that you have been enrolled, you can go and do your investigation. So there's a major crisis in the educational sector and if we don't trust what's like to it, like you trust what's like to it, and if there's no intervention, I'm telling you everything will collapse. Okay, talking about intervention, Jideh Johnson, we know that the 2021 to 2020 into academic session is beginning. Most states have announced that the new session would commence. Lagos State has put out the announcement. Katina State as well. So for Katina State in particular and for all the Northern States in general, we know that academic activities was halted. Some states indefinitely suspended school activities because of the insecurity and now they've announced that schools can resume. But one of the questions I asked, when we discussed earlier on top trending was, what's the infrastructure of the government? For example, of Katina State, of Kaduna State have put in place to ensure that students are not kidnapped anymore beyond just making an announcement that school has resumed and that it can proceed to the next term. You know, while we were young, the PT association, the parents' teacher association was very strong and they were major critical stakeholder in the fashioning out of the educational policy that we have in Nigeria. What's the role of the PT? What's the level of engagement? It's clear that in Katina, for example, mobile network has been shut down in about 10 local governments. We read it in the papers, GD Johnson, can you hear us? Well, it seems we may have lost GD Johnson there to network challenges. And it just might be a perfect time to wrap up the conversation this morning. We'll say thank you for being with us all through the week, starting from Monday. And of course, we want to wish you a very, very beautiful weekend ahead. If you missed out on any conversation all through this week, you remember you can catch up on our social media platforms. It's simply at PLOS TV Africa on Facebook and Instagram, so with our YouTube channel at PLOS TV Africa and the new one at PLOS TV Africa Lifestyle. Yes, and do engage in all our content there. The comment section is always open for you to let us know what you think about these stories making headlines across Nigeria. I am Annette Felix. And I am Osaogie Ogboa. Have a great weekend.