Principals urge FG to secure schools

The All Nigeria Confederation of Principals of Secondary Schools (ANCOPSS) has decried the spate of kidnapping in the country, especially of students, and urged the federal government to secure all schools.

President of ANCOPSS, Mr. Anselm Izuagie, said school principals are not happy with the situation and want the federal government to secure all schools and punish perpetrators of the crime.

He spoke during the official commissioning of ANCOPSS secretariat in Gwagwalada, FCT, on Wednesday, where he lamented that principals felt helpless as they could not protect children under their custody.

“It is an unfortunate thing for people to target innocent children and use them as bait to make money and nobody is doing anything about it. You can see it is on the increase; every day schools are attacked and children are kidnapped for ransom.

“God will not forgive those people because I know some of them are also fathers and if this kind of thing happens to their children they won’t be happy.

“It is an unfortunate situation which ANCOPSS is not happy about but we are helpless because we cannot create security for ourselves so our cry is for the government to be committed and safeguard all schools in the country,” he said.

A former president of ANCOPPS and now serving senator, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, who was the special guest at the event, emphasised the need for more budgetary allocation to the education sector.

“It is true education has not been receiving the appropriate funding but it is very pleasing that last week our president was, among others, in the UK where they took a decision and passed a resolution that all the nations involved should allocate not less than 25 of the national budget to education.

“In fact the United Nations requirement is a minimum of 26 per cent of any nation’s fund to go to education,” Shekarau said.