dRPC Supports CSOs to make presentation to the Senate on Safe School Initiative
- Education
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Recall that following the abduction of over 200 Chibok School Girls in Borno State northeast Nigeria in April 2014, there was huge clamour concerning the faith of other schools in the area. To prevent a reoccurrence, SSI was launched by the Federal government of Nigeria in partnership with international donors and Nigerian business leaders.
In 2015, the sums of $30 million was raised under the National Safe School Fund for the initiative setting up 500 pilot schools in northern Nigeria with the aim of expanding the initiative to a national program students can go to school safely. Despite the initiative, several attacks were subsequently launched on schools and the attackers expanded their operation to other region.
The recurrence of this attacks raised several questions on states of the SSI, the money raised, availability of the project policy framework and whether or not the 500 schools which was proposed with initial fund was built.
To unravel the misery on the initiative, the Senate Joint Committee on Education (Basic & Secondary and Tertiary Institution and Tet-Fund invited the general public to a public hearing on the utilization of the funding proposed and budgeted for the Safe School Initiative (SSI), including monies, supports and donations received from foreign government and agencies on the 30th of September 2021.
Thus, given the significance of the event, the development Research and Project Centre – a non-government organization working to promote transparency and accountability in Nigeria provided technical supports to six non-government organization in northern Nigeria to prepare and submit memorandum and make their case during the hearing.
These CSOs who were drawn from the northeast and northwest. They include;
- Girl Child Concerns (GCC), Borno State
- Darkin Yakin Gagi, Sokoto State
- Northeast Civil Society Forum (NCSF), Borno State
- Communityy Aid for Health and Development Foundation (COMMUNIAID NIGERIA), Zamfara State.
- Prof. Bala Dogo, Kaduna State, and
- Centre for Advocacy Transparency and Accountability Initiative (CATAI), Kano State
During the hearing which was attended by Senate president Hamed Lawal and chaired by the Senator Ibrahim Gaidam. According to the chairman, the essence of the investigative hearing was to receive factual submissions, inputs and insights on the implementation of the initiative from invited stakeholders.
The first submission was delivered by Amb. Ahmed Shehu who is also the chairman of Northeast Civil Society Forum. According to him, Borno State is the most affected, with 60% of schools closed, compared to 14% in Yobe and none in Adamawa. 71% of schools in the state have shut down at some point since 2012 due to conflict.
He, therefore, urged the support federal government to sustained the local initiatives on peace-building efforts, de-radicalization, and reconciliation in respective communities as well as the establishment of an effective monitoring unit across states to monitor the utilization of resources within the various states for proper and effective management of resources meant for the safe school initiative.
