Lagos mount surveillance on public schools amidst rampant abductions of schoolchildren in the North

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Amidst rampant abductions of schoolchildren in northern Nigeria by bandits, the Lagos government has mounted “constant surveillance” on public schools, Peoples Gazette reports.

While most recent mass abductions of schoolchildren for ransom took place in the North, there is a likelihood of copycat attacks in a city like Lagos, which had experienced.

But the Lagos Commissioner for Education, Folashade Adefisayo, told Peoples Gazette that the government was not under any illusions that its public schools were impenetrable.

In a terse message, Ms. Adefisayo told the Gazette that the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration was working with the police command in Lagos to provide “constant” security cover for schoolchildren, particularly those in public boarding schools.

“We are working with the Police Command in the State, and the schools are under constant surveillance,” she disclosed to the Gazette.

Between December 2020 and March 2021, bandits abducted hundreds of schoolboys and schoolgirls across Katsina, Niger, and Zamfara. The bandits freed the students after they received ransoms, though the governments denied any payment.

In the past, Lagos has had its fair share of schoolchildren abductions as militants besieged the state, wreaking havoc on its outskirts.

Gunmen, on February 29, 2016, abducted pupils of Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary in Ikorodu.

Later that year, on October 6, assailants described as militants attacked Igbonla Model College in Epe, abducting the school’s vice principal, teacher, and pupils.

Again, in May 2017, the Epe school was attacked by gunmen, abducting pupils and staff.