Governor Nasir El-Rufai has refuted claims that the state
government plans to relocate tertiary institutions from Southern Kaduna.
He said the schools will be re-opened soon with improved
security situation of the area.
Addressing newsmen in Kaduna on Wednesday in reaction to a
press conference addressed by the National President, Southern Kaduna Youth and
Students Forum (SKYFOM), Galadima Jesse the governor said, as a government,
they were more concerned with reopening of the schools.
He, however, said government will only do so when the
security concerns in the area were adequately addressed.
The governor who was represented by the Commissioner for
Education, Science and Technology, Professor Andrew Jonathan Nok, his
counterpart from the Ministry of Health and Human Services, Dr. Paul Manya Dogo
and the Senior Special Assistant Media and Publicity Samuel Aruwan, reiterated,
“There is no plans whatsoever to move the schools from Southern Kaduna as it is
being speculated.”
According to the governor, “There is no agenda whatsoever
by government to kill education in Southern Kaduna, but the state government
is providing a robust plan to uplift standard of education in all parts of the
state.
”It is important to state that there has never been any
plans or discussion whatsoever to the best of my knowledge that the college of
midwifery in Kafanchan will be moved out of Kafanchan, it is very important to
state this.
“Secondly, with respect to academic activities at the
school, it is important to also state that there has been some activities going
on in the school, there was a social request that was made to the government
and this was discussed by the security committee to permit certain students to
write their examinations and in the month of March the final year midwifery
students wrote their examinations.
“In the month of May, they conducted what is referred to as
hospital finals, for the nursing students preparing them for their National
final examination in September and just last Friday the preliminary training
students just concluded their examination that will allow us to index them,
this examination was concluded last Friday.
“All this has to be done with special permission from the
security committee and with additional security provided to these students to
write their examinations and as soon as the security committee are satisfied
with the security situations in the state, the school will be reopen for normal
activities.
“When I was here during our midterm review, I spoke on the
Kafanchan campus of KASU and college of education Gidan waya that they are
still closed strictly because of security concerns, we have not been able to
collect security clearance from the security commitee for us to go ahead and
reopen these institutions.
“Just to let you know especially as it relates to the
Kafanchan campus of KASU, we thought it wise in order to sustain the admission
for the new JAMB students, we ensured that the students were brought to Kaduna
to conclude the rest of the semester.
“First and foremost is to ensure that we do not loose any
part of the Semester and secondly, we would have the opportunity to actually
admit new students in this JAMB examination just conducted.
“I must admit that we are making frantic efforts to see that
the institutions reopen after all security issues are attended to. I also wish
to state that if you take a visit to Kafanchan, you will realized that all
other activities are ongoing expecially construction works.
“I was in Kafanchan last week when I flagged off the
distribution of textbooks in zone three at government girls science college,
Kwoi from where we proceeded to Kafanchan to meet the Emir to discuss the
security situation of the area and proceeded to Gidan waya to the primary
school attached to the college of education, this goes to show government
seriousness that academic activities resume in these institutions and we are
pushing that quite well.
“We want the students to know that we are working hard and
hopefully soon the security issues will be resolved so that academic activities
in those campuses will resume soon.”
By Amos Tauna
