We shutdown schools to protect students – Bauchi governor

The Bauchi state government says it has closed down public and private schools to protect them from possible attacks.

Bala Mohammed said this during the State Executive Council (SEC) meeting, on Wednesday in Bauchi.

He said the security architecture had received an intelligence of a plausible and imminent invasion and abduction of schools in the state, hence the decision to avert the attack.

“Yes, we closed our schools because we were asked to close them by the security agencies as they have more information than us, even though I’m the Chief Security Officer, I don’t have the personnel.

“They have told us that there is a likelihood of abduction of our students as has been the practice all over which is why we sympathise with other states where these things happened.

“For being proactive is not to create fear but to be safe and secure is better than to go with ego.

“We have closed the schools and we will make sure that we do as much as we can to make those far away or hard-to-reach and vulnerable schools fence maybe before the end of this year,” he said.

Mohammed said that all the schools in the state must be fenced with security lights, adding that recruitment of vigilantes would go concurrently with the Safe School Programme, as enunciated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).

He stressed that the programme would be implemented 100 per cent in the state.

On security, Mohammed said the five police personnel killed in Darazo Local Government Area of the state, was not a banditry attack as being insinuated rather a community related issue.

“We had an incident in Darazo, an incident of banditry as reported but I want to tell you, it is not banditry, it is a community issue. We are here on the ground and we know it.

“We will handle it very well and I want to assure the general public that what happened in Darazo is not banditry but a community related issue, and we will handle it with the police and DSS,” he said.