Nigerian education was erstwhile believed to be an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity. However, as unimaginable amounts requested by bandits as ransom in exchange for abducted school children as young as breastfeeding infants show how callous these daring bandits have become, one is keen to ask: “if the nation has thus degenerated that the schools represent a dystopian world”? For even the devil has since resigned in empathy to the fate of these abducted victims in the hands of their inhumane abductors as some spend days on end with no hope of rescue in sight: Leah Sharibu, Chibok girls, among others.

Educational insecurity can best be described within the Nigerian context as the most neglected, non-violent, psychological, and emotional dehumanizing death experience one dares experience in a lifetime with the highest record of unprecedented trauma left in its trail. The statistics abound from the number of kidnapping incidents and abducted victims the sector has produced, through the fallout of suicidal acts and sex-for-mark that grace the headlines, to the inescapable dastard fruits of cult-related activities. The question becomes rife if education in Nigeria still remains the presumed “silver bullet” it ought to be?

With the budget allocated to the educational sector, the litany of “strikes”, the closure of “vulnerable” schools, the dilapidated state of educational infrastructure, etc. that trail the Nigerian educational sector, it is evident that schools which ought to be the microcosm of the society have failed in its role as the vaccine for violence. Hence, it may be right to situate that while schools in developed countries represent the engine of growth, Nigeria’s educational sector has become the “Central Bank” for kidnapping by bandits and Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgents. Or what better explanation can be given the unending list of kidnapping incidents at Chibok, Jangebe, Kankara, Kangara, Dapchi Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, Greenfield University, Kaduna and Zamfara states, and a host of others.

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Are these bandits and Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgents achieving their mission of eliminating Western Education (“book haram” = western education is a sin)? Time will tell.

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Remember, “…Education is the starting point. Anybody who missed the opportunity of receiving education has missed EVERYTHING because you cannot succeed outside your educational qualification” (Nigerian President).

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