From Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
Muhammed Husseini left his hometown in Gamboru-Ngala Local Government along the Nigeria-Cameroon border in Borno State as a child. He migrated to live in Dikwa in the central part of the state, as a Koranic pupil. He was barely five years then.
Inter-community migration is a common practice among people in the North often influenced by several factors including search for Koranic education, farming and cattle rearing.
Unfortunately, Husseini became a victim of Boko Haram attack in 2014. He escaped from Dikwa with scores of other residents after nearly two days of siege on the town.
He told Daily Sun: “I fled to Maiduguri with other persons.” Husseini aged seven then, loved education. To him, wearing school uniform was a tall dream having lost the hope to get education following his displacement by insurgency at Dikwa.
“I watched children going to schools but didn’t have any opportunity to do same. Many of the children at the IDPs camp in Maiduguri were also attending special classes. I couldn’t because I’ve passed the school children age,” he said.
Unlike some other youths who opted to do menial jobs in the city or at worse, become informants to Boko Haram, Husseini rekindled his love for the classroom. He enrolled in one of the vocational centres established by UNICEF through the European Union Support to Response, Recovery and Resilience.
Aside the learning, he also received training on starting a poultry farm and other skills: “I got a start-up fund for a small poultry. I am happy I don’t need to beg for food or money to feed myself now. I am even planning to start rearing goats.”
Hundreds of children and teenagers forced out of schools as a result of insurgency in the troubled North East states of Borno and Yobe now access formal and informal learning organised by UNICEF.
UNICEF Education Manager, Maiduguri Field Office, Paola Ripamonti, said 300,000 chidren and youths, boys and girls benefitted from such intervention: “Among them are 20,104 girls (53 per cent) out-of-school children who now access informal learning classes and 16,630 children (52 per cent girls) who transitioned into the formal education system.”
She said the fund built temporary and permanent classes to ensure beneficiaries have a fresh breath of learning. She said funding for the programme has been closed but urged the government to build on the existing system for sustainability.
A director at the Borno Agency For Mass Education, Hajiya Hauwa Abubakar, appealed to UNICEF and other international partners to consider more support for the education of children and youths affected by the violence in the area
Director of Schools, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Alhaji Ali Dogo, said Borno State Government has come out in place mechanism to sustain the response and recovery education programme.