From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts ( PAC), Bamidele Salam, has charged the government to take measures to improve security in schools in the country.
Salam stated this, while speaking on the sideline of an event organized by a Non Governmental Organization ( NGO), the Children of Africa Leadership And Values Development Initiative (CALDEV), to mark the 2023 Universal Children’s Day, on Monday, in Abuja.
The lawmaker stated that it is imperative to increase security in schools, owing to the attacks on schools in parts of the country by criminals, including bandits and insurgents. He added that attacks on schools have increased the number of out of school children, in the country.
Salam, who decried the large number of out of school children in the country, said there is need for the government and all stakeholders to collaborate to address the challenge.
According to him, “one of the very important issues this conference is set out to address is the issue of Out-Of-School Children. It is not a cheering news that Africa’s largest economy, the biggest nation in the black world has a number of Out-Of-School Children that is the most in all the countries of the world. 13.5 million children out of school.
“No nation can expect to accelerate development and growth with this number of children out of school, and we should be able to proffer solutions to this problem in a manner that will be sustainable.”
Furthermore, the lawmaker stated that “we also have an interesting discussion on school security. In certain parts of this country, it is unfortunate that, for a child to go to school, we need extra security because of attacks on children by bandits and hoodlums.
“We also have various types of threats especially for the Girl-Child in different parts of the federation.And these are things that we believe that as government, as community leaders, as opinion moulders, as civil society people we should all focus our attention on doing.”