Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai has said the state government has no agenda to kill education in Southern part of the state as been insinuated by some interest groups and individuals. Kaduna State is located in the Northwestern part of Nigeria.

The state government has at the reawake of security threats in that part of the state shut College of Education, Gidan Waya, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Kafanchan and the Kaduna State University Kafanchan campus. These schools have remained closed since December 2016 and may not reopen until security chiefs give green signal.

Reacting to reports by the National President, Southern Kaduna Youth and Students Forum (SKYFOM), Galadima Jesse who had issued an ultimatum to government to reopen the schools in the area, the governor said, as a government, they are more concerned with reopening of the schools but will only do so once the security concerns in the area are adequately addressed.

Represented by the commissioner for Education, Science ‎and Technology, Professor Andrew 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, stated that, “there is no plans  whatsoever to move the schools  from Southern Kaduna as it is being speculated.

“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 are still closed and it is strictly because of security concerns we hav not being able to collect security clearance from the security commitee that we should go ahead and reopen those institutions.

“Just to let you know especially as it relays 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 institutions open after all security issues are attended to. I also wish to state that if u 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 there 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”, Prof Non said.