The terrorist threat to education

SIR: On March 7, 2024, while they were still basking in the solemnity of a general assembly, about 287 pupils and some staff members of LEA Primary School, Kuriga 1, in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State were jolted back to reality and hustled into an unimaginable fate by armed criminals. The abduction, shocking in its number and audacity, has ferried an entire country into a hasty return to the past, prompting difficult questions about the direction of the country under a new administration. What is especially disconcerting for many Nigerians is that they thought they had stuck away those questions somewhere in the past.

In captivity, the children ripped away from their reality while some of their stunned parents watched on will be forced to engage their young minds in a distressing reflection on what it means to grow up in Nigeria. They will also be forced to become child umpires in calling emergency results in the increasingly gripping Nigerian context between crime and civility. They will be forced to pronounce a clear winner in the race between the easy millions of crime and the immiseration of honest work.

The children will also be forced to reconsider what they know about school as a sanctuary of some sorts, as a place where they go to read and learn to be good citizens and ambassadors of their country.

When Boko Haram rejigged and expanded its operations in 2009, western education was a pronounced target. In more than a decade of murderous, traitorous and treacherous campaigns, many schools were torn down and the education of numberless children put into irreparable jeopardy. Read the remaining part of this article on www. guardian. ng