What we’re doing to prevent abduction in schools

From Molly Kilete, Abuja

With the rising cases of mass abduction of school children in some parts of the country, Nigerians have expressed concerns over the implementation of the Safe School Initiative and The Safe School Declaration, which has the Nigerian Police Force as one of the implementing agencies.

In this interview, the Commissioner of Police, Schools Protection Squad, Force Headquarters Abuja, Dr Abayomi Shogunle gave an insight into the efforts of his team to counter attacks of schools.

With the escalation of attacks on schools by bandits, what has your squad done so far?

In all state commands, we have specialised school protection squad personnel who have been ensuring safety of schools and learning environment. And this is on record that the initiative by the Nigerian Police Force and other agencies regarding this Safe School Initiative and declaration has been applauded by international educational stakeholders, led by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA).

And I can confirm to you that from May 12 to May 14 2026, the African Union, together with Save the Children International and the GCPEA, commended Nigeria on the implementation of the Safe School Initiative and how it has reduced attacks on education and schools across Nigeria. And this made global international stakeholders to bring in delegates from five African countries, from Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Somalia and the African Union to Nigeria. They brought them to Nigeria for two days and the purpose of bringing them was for them to come and learn how we have been implementing the Safe School Initiative, which has led to drastic reduction in attacks on education and schools.

So I don’t know where you got your own data from that suggests otherwise. But from available data and statistics that we have, since the implementation of this Safe School Initiative, there has been a drastic reduction, which has been attested to by the global educational stakeholders which made them to bring in other countries to Nigeria just about three weeks ago and they plan to bring all the countries in Africa to Nigeria to come and learn from what they call the Nigeria model success story.

What do you have to say about the recent attack on Osun and Borno schools despite the laudable achievements you claim to have recorded?

Okay, you see, generally there is no society where you will eradicate crime completely. What is acceptable is a tolerable level of crime. So there are one or two cases in Oyo and Borno and coordinated efforts by the Federal Government are ongoing to ensure the safe rescue of all these victims. The fact that we have one or two isolated cases doesn’t mean that it is on the increase. For every one case that we see, hundreds of cases of attack on education have been prevented. Let me also add that when you look at the last one year, in the few cases that we have had, we made sure that those people responsible for such cases faced justice. They don’t have the ability to repeat such attacks. If you look at it from the incidences of Kebbi, Yobe, Borno and Niger in the last one year, all the cases I mentioned to you, all the perpetrators, the Nigerian Police Force and other security agencies made sure that they are not able to perform another of such attacks because they have been removed from circulation.

Would you say the SPU is a success so far; and what do you think can be done to further protect students from attacks?

Of course the school protection squad has been a success story and generally the Safe School Initiative and the Safe School Declaration has been a success story. We are not even the ones saying it; the international communities are the ones saying it. We are not assessing ourselves.

Just as I told you, international education stakeholders such as the Office of the African Union Special Envoy for Children affected by armed conflicts and the GCPEA. If all these bodies are commending the Nigerian efforts regarding the implementation of the Safe School Initiative, then I think that is it.

And again when you look at the situation on ground, you are going to see that a lot has changed from when the Chibok (school) attack happened. Both the security approach before the Chibok incident and the security response immediately after the incident, you are going to see that a lot has changed. You can see that within very few days of these isolated cases of attacks, the victims were rescued. Not only that the victims were rescued, you will also see that the people that are involved don’t have the ability to perform another attack because security forces have removed them from circulation during such rescue operations.

We call on citizens because of issues of school protection, security of education facilities, we expect citizens to give us information. For instance, we have a school protection squad Call Centre, which is dedicated strictly to school emergencies only and this centre is available 24 hours of the day and members of the public can reach this centre either through phone calls or WhatsApp messages on this number: 08077357777.

Then I also want to urge the media, especially radio stations, to please use their medium to do this as a Corporate Social Responsibility. Help us to broadcast this phone number and let the citizens know how they can contact the police in case of emergency regarding school abduction.

What are you doing to enlighten the public?

That is what I am begging the media to do because the truth is, the media is expecting us to come and pay for adverts and we don’t have that fund to pay for a long period of adverts. So let the media take it as a corporate social responsibility because when this Oyo attack happened, I accompanied the IGP, Olatunji Disu, to Oyo State, to Ogbomosho, to Ahoro-Esinle in Oriire Local Government Area where these incidents happened. And from interviews of the members of the communities, they even said they have not heard about this school protection squad before and that they don’t know that there is a phone number through which they can call when there is an emergency and I really felt sad. I heard people listening to radio in that community, I saw people watching television, I saw people reading newspapers and then I started wondering what steps the media is taking to actually get members of the public enlightened, especially people in the rural areas. So please, I am urging the media to help us use their platform to publicise these things.

Is this the first time you are calling on the media to help you?

I have mentioned it in other media houses that I had interviews with as early as last week and we will continue to say this because if the media is waiting for us to come and run adverts on this, we will not come and run adverts because we don’t have that fund. But they should please help us to disseminate this information. And you know I said a lot of cases have been prevented in the past and most of these cases that we prevented were as a result of information that we received through these phone numbers I gave to you. So please help us to publish it and let the citizens know that they can actually call us.

What is your assurance to parents because some are thinking of withdrawing their wards from schools over insecurity?

No, I don’t think it’s true that some parents are thinking of withdrawing their children from school. Rather what is making people more apprehensive is fake news. So I will urge the media to always verify any information regarding any attack or security of school from relevant authorities before they publish. That’s actually what is driving the apprehension, not even the few attacks that we have recorded.