The Chairman of Farmers Herders Initiative for Peace and Development Africa (FHIPD – AFRICA), Salim Musa Umar has said bandits had killed over 2,000 teachers and destroyed 1,500 nomadic schools, while 19,000 school children have been displaced in the last eight years.

He made this known during a workshop supported by Universal Basic Education (UBE) for staff of the National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE) from the North Central Geo-political zone held at the headquarters of NCNE in Kaduna on Friday.

In a paper titled, “Rural Banditry and its implication for Effective Service Delivery in National Commission for Nomadic Education (NCNE), the peace advocacy expert noted that today the major constraints of Nomadic education apart from funding and farmers /herders clash is insecurity in the northern parts of the country and the whole country.

He maintained that the above factors are major obstacles to the survival of the commission.

“The activities of the banditry have added to the problem of the country’s educational sector. Since 2014 over 2000 teachers were killed and over 19,000 school children displaced, while over 1,500 schools were destroyed. This negative development has resulted in an increase of out-of-school children and a drop in new enrolments across the board in formal and nonformal sectors of our school system,” he said.

In his opening remarks, the Director of the consultancy of the commission, Abubakar Ahmadu Yaro disclosed that in recent years, conflict and insecurity among nomadic pastoralists and farmers are becoming very alarming in most states of the North-central zone.

Hence, the need for assessment of the immediate and remote causes of such conflicts in the zone, saying, it is expected that the findings from the exercise would assist the commission in proffering lasting solutions towards addressing the menace.

Declaring the workshop open, the Executive Secretary of the commission, Professor Bashir Haruna Usman has said insecurity characterized by violent, communal clashes, cattle banditry, kidnapping, armed banditry, and sea piracy has affected the smooth implementation of the Nomadic Education programme(NEP).

Represented by Director Quality Assurance, Mr. Akin Akinyosoye said the high level of insecurity led to the displacement of the nomads and resulted in the complete abandonment of schools and frequent migration which increases the high rate of dropout and out-of-school children.

He remarked to address the aforementioned challenges, the commission found it necessary to conduct training for data collectors to enable the commission to have reliable and valid data.

In addition to building the capacity of the stakeholders to understand the remote and immediate causes of the conflict and insecurity. (Nigerian Tribune)

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