NIGERIA: Government owned schools across Nigeria have been shut down for a day as teachers protest against the abduction of more than 200 female students by Islamist militant group Boko Haram

Record ID: 236754

  • Title: NIGERIA: Government owned schools across Nigeria have been shut down for a day as teachers protest against the abduction of more than 200 female students by Islamist militant group Boko Haram
  • Date: 22nd May 2014
  • Summary: LAGOS, NIGERIA (MAY 22, 2014) (REUTERS) NEWSPAPER STAND MAN READING NEWSPAPER
  • Embargoed: 6th June 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9RP8K62CFWKJTIIW4TOVQFYMA
  • Story Text: Nigerian teachers went on strike for a day and staged rallies nationwide on Thursday (May 22) in protest against the kidnapping of more than 200 female school students by the Islamist Boko Haram sect and the killing of nearly as many teachers during its insurgency.
    Boko Haram gunmen stormed a school outside the remote northeastern town of Chibok on April 14, carting some 270 girls away in trucks.
    More than 50 have since escaped but at least 200 remain in captivity, as do scores of other girls kidnapped previously.
    National Union of Teachers (NUT) President Michael Alogba Olukoya told reporters Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful," had killed 173 teachers over five years.
    No teachers were killed in the Chibok attack.
    Schools were shut down across the country and students who had attended unaware were sent back home.

    "They told us that teachers were protesting, that they want to do it for those girls that Boko Haram kidnapped. When we went to school, they sent us home, that there is no school today that we should go back home," said Salami Rufiat, student.
    In Lagos, Nigeria's commercial metropolis and port of 21 million people in the south, around 350 teachers gathered in the green Gani Fawehinmi park. One carried a placard reading: "You can't intimidate us".

    "This is a national directive from the NUT (Nigeria Union of Teachers) headquarters to actually sensitize the public and the education friends on the abduction of over 200 girls from government secondary school Chibok in Borno state, the one that has taken over about 5 weeks now and these girls have not come back. It is a dangerous dimension in the education industry and of course about 173 teachers that were killed in Borno and Yobe states, in fact it is devastating and we feel threatened in the industry," said Adesegun Ganiru, state chairman of the NUT in Lagos.

    "As this thing is going on, if nothing is done other children's lives are being threatened, kidnapping all over the place, stealing, maiming of life, that's what we are saying should stop," economics teacher, Ojo Veronica said.
    The union says they will continue the campaign even as they mourn the death of their colleagues until the abducted school girls are brought back safe and alive.

    "It's a serious threat to education in this country. When everybody has decided to pull all resources together to move the nation forward, because a nation cannot grow beyond the level of its education and now that important sector that can transform the development, the growth that we are aspiring for is suffering a serious threat, oh, there is doom for this nation," said Akintoye Hassan, national representative of the NUT in Lagos.

    "If these children put under our care for one reason or the other, for the reason of lack of security in the country, then somebody came from nowhere and took them away, I think there is need for us, even if we have 100 sheep, and one is lost, there is need for you to seek for the one and bring them back to the fold," said Ola Hamzat Oladele, a teacher based in Lagos.
    The Chibok kidnapping has drawn international attention to Nigeria and Boko Haram, much of it driven by the #BringBackOurGirls Twitter campaign, which has been supported by celebrities like Michelle Obama and film star Angelina Jolie.
    President Goodluck Jonathan and the military have come under intense criticism for their slow reaction to the mass abduction, although last week Nigeria accepted help from the United States, Britain, France and China to help find the girls.
    The United States has deployed about 80 military personnel to Chad in its effort to help find the girls, President Barack Obama told Congress on Wednesday (May 21).
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register