Fulani herdsmen crisis forces 300,000 Benue students to abandon schooling as they lose an academic year

BENUE State government officials have revealed shocking statistics showing that as many as 300,000 school-age pupils are not attending school because of the disruption caused by the Fulani cattle herdsmen menace.

 

More than any other state in Nigeria, Benue has felt the brunt of the cattle herdsmen saga as heavily-armed pastoralists terrorise its rural areas, raiding villages and leaving hundreds dead in bloody attacks. This has led to the displacement of large numbers of people and across large swathes of the state, villages have been abandoned as farmers and their families flee for dear life.

 

Outlining the socio-economic cost of it all, Professor Wilfred Uji, the executive secretary of the Benue State Teaching Service Board, said that the persistent herdsmen attacks had disrupted the school calendar and forced 300,000 children out of school. He added that 200,000 of the figure are secondary school students and 100,000 are primary school pupils, which cut across three local government areas.

 

Professor Uji, said Government Secondary School, Gbajimba; Government Secondary School, Agasha; Government Science Secondary School, Logo and Government Secondary School, Ukum, among others, had been burnt or closed down completely by herdsmen. He added that secondary and primary school pupils in public schools in Apa, Agatu, Makurdi, Okpokwu and Ogbadibo had also been forced to abandon their studies.

 

“I pray this should stop, otherwise, it is going to be a nightmare. The situation in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps is so overwhelming that even with the mobile schools we established in the camps, it is difficult to control the teaching and learning process as a result of overcrowding.

 

"Students, who are displaced and now taking their West African School certificate, even though we moved them to safer centres, are not finding it easy. It’s painful watching students from the IDP camps coming to sit for exams,” Professor Uji said.

 

He also noted that the situation had been worsened by threats to teachers. Professor Uji appealed to the federal and state governments to address the crisis or else Benue State might find itself not being able to compare with the people from other parts of the country.

 

Professor Uji added: “The future of our children is under attack, education in Benue State is under attack and this has been compromised completely due to the situation we find ourselves in. In the herdsmen and farmers’ crisis, the isolated targets are usually the schoolchildren.

 

“If this crisis is between herdsmen and farmers, why the attacks on educational facilities, much the same way like the fight you find in the northeast. There is a connect between the Boko Haram attacks in the northeast and the attacks by Fulani herdsmen in the north-central geo-political zones in terms of killings and the destruction of properties."

 

He added that it is his firm belief that somebody somewhere is trying to destroy the educational standards of Benue. According to professor Uji, a whole school year has been destroyed and it will take more than five to 10 years to recover from this.

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