By Gift Olivia Samuel, The Sight News
ABUJA: In a bid to ensure that children in Nigeria are safe in schools, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has called on the international community to assist Nigeria in protecting these children.
The HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, who made this known to The Sight News recently in Abuja, urged the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as well as other agencies to step up action and provide technical assistance to Nigeria.
According to him, “The issue of protecting children in our schools is not just a Nigerian issue alone. It is something that the international community has to come in to assist Nigeria.
“The states and the Federation need to wake up and double up measures on how to protect the schools. They need to build fences around the schools and also set up protective mechanisms”.
Onwubiko, who noted that there are police, soldiers and other law enforcement agencies already in place, charged the government to make use of all these relevant agencies to protect schools.
“It is an obligation on the part of the Government to provide round the clock protection for the children. If you don’t provide safety and protection for the children, then what is the essence of Government?
“They may say, the schools are too many and the policemen are not enough, but that’s not true. The schools are not too many, the number of boarding schools are not much.
“You cannot protect the children of the poor, but you can send your children abroad for them to attend the best schools where they are protected by other Governments and nobody is saying anything”, he remarked.
He further noted that assistance that should be given to Nigeria must not come by way of finance to any government official, rather technical assistance should be provided to support the country to protect children from being abducted from their place of study.
“There is a need for the problem to be addressed holistically. It is a problem not to have the confidence that your kids in school are safe. It is the failure of the Nigerian constitution by the government”, he added.
Meanwhile, Onwubiko while speaking on the Deeper Life school student, Don Davis, who was serially sexually violated in school by senior students in a school somewhere in Akwa Ibom state, stated that the student must be granted efficacious justice by the state and the School.
He pointed out that the failure of the General Overseer of Deeper Life Church, Pastor Kumuyi to address the scandal publicly amounts to arrogance of power.
