Katsina schools resume amidst heavy deployment of riot policemen

File photo: Katsina State map

A new security arrangement that will include mobile policemen and other security operatives is to be provided for each of the schools in Katsina State.

The Police Commissioner in Kaduna State, Sanusi Buba, made the revelation on Monday at the headquarters of the state Police Command during the parade of some suspects alleged to be involved in banditry, gun running and kidnapping.

The police commissioner said some of the security operatives had already been posted to schools.

Buba said, “We have put in place necessary security arrangements for schools in Katsina State which will see our Mobile Police Force among security operatives that will henceforth man our schools.

“I thank other sister security agencies for their support for the command. And with the security arrangement we have put in place, we shall never experience abduction of students similar to the Kankara Science School students again in Katsina State, Insha Allah.”

Several schools in the state, on Monday, resumed academic activities following a directive that schools should re-open after a vacation prompted by security challenges in the state last December.

The state government had ordered the closure of all schools shortly after 344 students of Government Science School, Kankara were abducted by bandits.

Investigation on Monday revealed that many schools with the exemption of boarding schools reopened in line with the government directive.

Attendance in some of the schools was below average, although students resumed as early as 8 am and observed all the COVID-19 protocols.

At Government Junior Comprehensive School, Kofar Yandaka, classes resumed immediately, although the majority of the students have yet to resume as of 8.45 am when this reporter left the school.

The school principal, Mallam Ibrahim Abubakar, however, said 70 per cent of the students had already reported.

A police sergeant (names withheld) at the school’s main gate also said he was there for the safety of the students.