From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Ahead of the resumption of primary and post-primary schools in Nigeria next week, the Commandant-General (CG), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Dr. Ahmed Abubakar Audi, has appointed a new commander for the National Safe Schools Response Co-ordination Centre (NSSRCC) of the security agency. The new commander for the NSSRCC, Ahmed Abodunrin, was appointed to inject new blood into strategies to strengthen the security of schools.
The Safe School Initiative became effective following frequent attacks and kidnappings of schoolchildren across the country. The new Safe School commander takes over from the erstwhile Commander, CSC Tersoo Shaapera, who has been redeployed. Abodunrin, the new NSCDC Commander of the NSSRCC, who hails from Iresi in Osun State, is a trained and accomplished journalist before he was enlisted into the NSCDC as a volunteer in 1994 and rose through the ranks.
He has held various major key appointments in the NSCDC and was a former state commandant in Ogun and Ondo States. He bagged his first degree from the University of Lagos, while he also obtained his masters and doctorate degrees from the University of Ibadan. Abodunrin is a fellow of the Institute of Criminology and Strategic Studies (FICSS) and also a fellow of the prestigious National Defence College.
It would be recalled that in April 2014, a total of 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Some of the girls escaped captivity on their own, while others were later released, following intense campaigning efforts by civil society organisations and negotiations by the government. Barely four years after the attack on Chibok, the insurgents also launched deadly attacks on Government Girls Science Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State in the troubled North-West region, where over 110 students were kidnapped.
Other attacks on schools by bandits have taken place since.