By Chika Abanobi
Participants in the 2022 ECOWAS Youth Summit, a programme that brings together, from time to time, secondary schools in Nigeria and other West African countries to discuss issues, have called on the government to do something about the adverse effect of insecurity ravaging the region on the quality of education that students receive.
Their call comes against the backdrop of a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) of 9,272 schools in Nigeria and nine other countries across West and Central Africa being shut down between 2017 and 2019 because of terrorist attacks. The report done in partnership with Global Education Monitoring Report also showed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria had risen from 12.5 million in 2021 to 20 million in 2022.
Some of the major school abductions include the April 14, 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State; another 300 pupils from Damasak, Borno State; 110 pupils from Dapchi, Yobe State; 344 pupils from Kankara, Katsina State; 276 pupils from Jangebe, Zamfara State; 140 students from Chikun, Kaduna State; and 102 pupils from Yauri, Kebbi State. “When education is under attack, a generation is under attack,” Mercy Gichuhi, Country Director, Save the Children International, Nigeria, noted in connection with the report.
The concerns raised by this worrisome development is what about 300 students, drawn from schools within Lagos and Ogun States, gathered at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria Island, on October 6, 2022, to discuss. This year’s programme with the theme “The Challenges of Insecurity In the 21st Century In Nigeria – The Effect on Education” saw students from the participating schools being assigned sub-topics to discuss and other educational tasks to execute.
For instance, while students from Upright Model Academy, Abeokuta, Ogun State, spoke on the topic “Insecurity, the State of Education Unrest,” their counterparts from Baptist Model High School, Isolo, Lagos, spoke on “Negative Impact of Insecurity on Nigerian Educational System.” Others were: Stepfield School, Surulere, Lagos, on “Insecurity as a threat to education in Nigeria” and Comfort Ville International Schools, Aboru, Lagos on “The Challenges of Internal Security in the 21st Century.”
Other activities featured during the summit include overviews of some West African countries and soliloquy speeches. While the D’Cherub Schools, Lekki, Lagos, handled that of the Republic of Liberia, Maria Breed College, also located in Lekki, did an overview of Guinea Bissau; Ronik Comprehensive High School, Isolo, Lagos, of The Gambia; Garland School, Ejigbo, Lagos, of Ghana and Renics College, Gowon Estate, Egbeda, Lagos, of the Republic of Benin.
Lady Judith Edirin Eyegho, whose organisation, Shalom Vineyard Initiative, convened the 10th edition of the summit and who has been doing so since its debut in 2005, said that the purpose of giving the overviews was to acquaint the students with the history and some facts about the selected countries. “The presenters did the research and came up with the amazing facts they presented,” she said.
Welcoming students to the summit, she noted that the programme was meant to build some patriotic spirit in them to help them serve their fatherland and make them responsible and resourceful individuals who will contribute their quotas to nation-building. She said: “Education is a public good that should be directed at uplifting the social, economic, political, scientific, technological and cultural life of a nation and developing the talents of individual citizens. It is a social process for building an all-round human personality for the development of democratic culture and for inculcating in citizens the sheer value necessary for the common life of the people.”