Insecurity, the biggest threat to children, not vehicular accidents – Ozioma Onyenweaku

Ozioma Onyenweaku

The Ministry of Education has just launched the Accident Prevention Initiative which has been tagged, ‘Go to School… Be Seen…Be Safe’. It was disclosed at the launch that the Federal Government plans to distribute reflective jackets to 40 million school children across the country. This is seen as part of Federal Government’s efforts to prevent accidents, and protect the school children from road accidents.

This much was revealed by the Minister for State for education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba who emphasized that the initiative is part of government interest in protecting Nigerian children. He is quoted as saying:“The initiative, especially, is to prevent children from sustaining injuries while trekking to and from neighbouring schools. It is in pursuit of the good health and well-being of school children and realization of quality education”

He explained further that “the initiative is designed to primarily aid the protection of school children from road accidents associated with motor vehicles, motor cycles, tricycles while crossing our busy network of roads to and from their respective schools… As enshrined in the Memorandum of Understanding, the program encompasses a phased kitting of school children within the ages of 4 and 14 years in selected schools at the federal and state levels, with customized reflective jackets and armbands…”

The program of supplying reflective jackets and arms band to school children is expected to be later expanded to reach children in schools in the 36 states and the FCT.

The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Umar Farouq, in commending the Ministry for the program stated: “I applaud the Federal
Ministry of Education and the Children Accident Prevention Initiative (CAPI) for stewarding such a desired program whose benefits are evidently of immeasurable value to the lives of our children and families. As such, we must all fully support it.”

I do not share this sentiment at all. In normal times, I would have joined in the loud applause for this initiative. I would have also pronounced it a laudable program. Looking out for children, I know that is not the immediate and pressing need of the children. The greatest threat to their safety is not vehicular accidents. It is the insecurity in the country; the escalating incidences of abduction and kidnapping of school children. Vehicular accidents are the least of worries in the country. Schools would have to be open and safe to access before a student would hit the road and worry about accident.

Many schools in some parts of the country have been closed and have remained closed because of fear of abduction. Many of the abducted school children are yet to be rescued. Rather than abet, the insecurity is so heightened that it keeps spreading like wild fire across the entire country. No one and nowhere is safe any longer in the country.

May 2021 ended with the abduction of about 156 pupils from Salihu Tanko Islamiyya in Tegina town in the Rafi Local Government Area of Niger State.One hundred and ten Million Naira has been asked for as ransom.

Is it amidst this level of insecurity, fear and terror, where the hopelessness over the whole situation looms big that kitting children for school against road accident would be prioritized by the Ministry of Education? The students need to be safe, and protected from abduction for the reflective jacket to be meaningful.

Following the abduction of over 300 school girls by gunmen in Jangebe village in Zamfara State on February 27, 2021, did all the classrooms in that school and neighbouring schools not become deserted? Is it school children who cannot even access their schools that need reflective jackets?

The priority for now is taking every urgent, immediate and sustainable step to keep schools and the children safe. I had earlier called for the implementation of the Safe School Declaration which the President of Nigeria ratified on 20th March 2019.
.When Nigeria signed that Declaration, it made a public declaration that attack on schools has become unacceptable to the country. Going further to ratify the said Declaration, Nigeria declared that it is bound to keep all the principles of the Declaration, and ensure to put in place a national policy to guide the implementation of the Declaration.

The Ministry of education and all stakeholders should be seen pushing for the implementation of the Safe School Declaration. That is where the applause lies.

In the face of the escalating and widespread insecurity and abduction of school children in Nigeria, the Accident Prevention Initiative which has been tagged, ‘Go to School… Be Seen…Be Safe’ is a white elephant project. My one dollar opinion!