From Kenneth Udeh, Abuja

The Nigerian Senate raised an alarm on Wednesday that the out of school children in the country estimated to be over 20 million risk being recruited into the folds of terrorist groups such as Boko Haram, banditry, kidnappers and other criminal entities terrorising the country.

Following a motion brought to the Red Chambers by Senator Adebule Idiat Oluranti (Lagos West), the lawmakers expressed fears that out of school children risk joining criminal gangs if concerted efforts are not put in place to ensure that they complete their basic and secondary education.

Adebule who premised her lead debate on the 2022 report of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) noted that about 20 million Nigerian children are out of school which represent 10 percent of the estimated Nigerian population of 200 million people and also represents the highest number of Out of School Children from any country globally.

The Lagos West lawmaker sadly expressed that the social impacts of having about 20 million out of school children include impediment to achieving some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal (4) which is to ensure inclusiveness and equitable quality of education and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for all.

On criminality Adebule informed the Senate that the situation subject more Nigerians may become ill-equipped to climb out of the poverty bracket and other social problems that might arise from this condition are gender inequality, early/child marriage, general socio-political instability.

She also lamented that efforts of the past administration of President Buhari to combat the scourge yielded minimal results.

She said; “the past successive administrations made several efforts to deal with the out of School Children problem and the last being the deployment of home-grown school feeding programs by the Muhammadu Buhari administration and supported with other programmes by development partners like the World Bank’s sponsored “Better Education Service Delivery For All” programme.

“However, all these efforts have had little impact on the surging number of Out of School Children, and we therefore need new thinking and more aggressive strategy to deal with this menace.

While calling for urgent solutions, Senator Tahir Monguno (Borno North) in his contribution said that the issue of insecurity may spiral out of control if the out of school children are not brought back to school.

He said; “Education is the panacea any society can use to dribble out of poverty but a veritable tool a society can use to achieve its development objectives.



“All hands must be on deck to ensure that over 20 million out of School children go back to school, so that groups like Boko Haram will not have a veritable ground to recruit these people.

The failed Nomadic Education programme was described as a major factor fueling banditry in the country by Senator Simon Lalong (Plateau South).

Lalong who was the immediate former chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum gave a startling revelation; “we don’t have to wait for the world bank. We cannot leave anyone who is not educated. When Nomadic education was introduced, a lot of politics came into it and it would have saved us from the banditry we face today.”

Deputy President Barau Jibrin also raised alarm that the out of school children may be recruited into terrorist groups, he expressed; “Bandits may recruit these children to whatever they want to do against the State”.

Former President of the Senate , Senator Ahmed Lawan (Yobe North) said that if properly checked the out of school children are actually 30 million not 20 million.

He said; “The issue of our school children is both a social and security problem for us and we have more than 20 million out of school children because what about those who have finished JSS 3 and are not able to go to SS1 ?? and that is a huge population so we are looking at over 30 million.

“We must do everything possible to deal with this issue and it will continue to provide the conduit pipe for the insecurity we are suffering from.

Accordingly the Senate resolved to; Mandate the Committee on Education (Basic & Secondary) to engage the Federal Ministry of Education with a view to paying special attention to the issue of Out of School Children with the ultimate objective of drastically reducing the number.

The Senate also urged the Ministry of Education, its related parastatals and agencies such as the Universal Basic Education stakeholders including non-governmental organizations severally and jointly bring up new strategy to effectively deal with Out of School Children problem as well as rekindle the national consciousness through sensitisation and advocacy on the importance of education to the growth and development of our country and the benefits of having majority educated population and to also set a time limit of two years for the diligent implementation of the UBE Act as stipulated in section 2 (2).

The lawmakers also urged governments at all levels to implement targeted intervention programmes that will address all the factors militating against free access to quality and basic education particularly multidimensional poverty and insecurity Equally urge the Judiciary in the 36 States of the Federation to take steps towards setting up mobile courts for the enforcement of the UBE ACT.

https://sunnewsonline.com/terrorists-may-recruit-over-20-million-children-senate/?amp

Idiotic statements. Boko Haram means no to western education. How can the wrong path for them be the right path for them same time? The leaders and followers are not in sync.
The same Islams that takes constitutional oyel money and reallocate to muslims can't be at the mercy of the constitution in another breathe.

Only true solution to Nigeria moving forward is to stop rigging elections and let the people choose their leaders.

If PO were elected president, many Nigerians home and abroad would’ve pulled in financial and intellectual resources together to make Nigeria thrive. Nobody will do that with a government that can’t be trusted

Almanirinci you mean. They’ve been recruiting them for years. You guys are just waking up to reality.

The fact is you lots can’t do anything to stop terrorists from recruiting children and people so far these people see benefits of joining the terrorists that the government and politicians fail to provide.

Imagine terrorists offering to pay a homeless, jobless, hungry child 35,000 naira monthly to work for them.

That's their business.
They can't be giving birth to children aimless for someone to train for them,only to use them for population census,voting, to control resources, government and religion.
Nonsense and idiotic talks.
Government should enact and enforced family planning laws instead of this myopic outcry.

Under the watch of APC terrorists are recking havocs all over Nigeria.
Tinubu will take care of economy shettima will take care of security up till date non is working.