Nomadic education commission boss laments bandits’ attacks, workers kidnapping

The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for Nomadic Education, Prof Bashir Usman, on Wednesday, lamented the attacks and kidnapping of members of staff in parts of Nigeria.

Usman, while appearing before the House of Representatives’ Committee on Basic Education to defend the commission’s proposed 2022 budget, said the situation led to the decision to procure a 25KV transmitter to broadcast lessons from the safety of a radio studio.

He also said the commission was working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and the National Livestock Development Plan to establish schools in grazing reserves to check the problem of kidnapping by bandits.

He said, “The honourable member asked about the running of nomadic schools now in view of this insurgency. We at the commission, we also have been pondering over this. But more importantly, we were also victims of the same type of banditry and kidnapping.

“My colleagues in the commission have been kidnapped several times; not only once, not twice, not three times. But then, we came around it to say ‘look, we need to do a few things over and above what is existing.’

“Those things are – if you can look at our budgets for 2021 and 2022 – since 2018, we decided to go to the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission to get a licence to have a radio that we can broadcast to our clientele and sensitise them, and do educational programmes that some of these pupils would acquire via radio.

“We now have two studios for broadcast and transmitting. That is why in 2021, we are budgeting an amount to buy a transmitter so we can start the broadcast, so we can also be a little bit safe in the comfort of the broadcasting studios and be able to talk to them in the manner they would understand.

“This is one way we said we would tackle the insurgency vis-a-vis the schooling of the children of the nomads. These are some of the things we are putting in place to tackle some of this banditry, kidnapping and so on.”

The committee, which is chaired by Prof Julius Ihonvbere, noted that the projects listed in the commission’s N1.39bn budget were not specified. Such projects included the rehabilitation of nomadic schools and drilling of boreholes among others.

The commission was directed to make available all the necessary details of the budget to the commission.