The Federal Government has launched a Smart School Protection Strategy to strengthen security across schools nationwide through a renewed partnership with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
The initiative was unveiled during a strategic engagement and reflects the administration’s zero tolerance for attacks on schools and its commitment to guaranteeing the safety of every Nigerian child.
The Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Olatunji Alausa, CON, described school protection as a non-negotiable priority. He made this known during an official visit to the Commandant-General of the NSCDC, Ahmed Audi, in Abuja on Wednesday to discuss security coordination.
Alausa announced the establishment of a dedicated Department of Safe School Initiative within the Federal Ministry of Education to coordinate policy implementation, monitoring, and inter-agency collaboration, with NSCDC serving as the lead operational agency.
He said the government had zero tolerance for attacks on schools and would deploy all necessary measures to keep children safe and ensure uninterrupted learning nationwide.
He described incidents of student abductions as unacceptable and stressed that protecting children in schools remained a collective responsibility of government, security agencies, and communities.
“We will move from knee-jerk responses to a continuous security presence, especially in vulnerable schools.
“Our children must remain safe in school, and this administration is committed to providing the resources and structure required,” Alausa said.
The minister explained that improved response systems would be introduced, including technology-driven alert mechanisms such as panic buttons linked to command centres to enable rapid deployment of security personnel.
He added that the government was exploring sustainable financing options to ensure continuous funding for school security, independent of delays in budgetary releases.
Alausa stated that NSCDC had been identified as the lead agency for school protection and said clearer operational coordination would replace fragmented and reactive security arrangements.
In his response, the NSCDC Commandant-General, Audi, disclosed that the corps had conducted nationwide vulnerability assessments, revealing that more than 60,000 of about 81,000 schools lacked adequate security.
According to him, the identified schools were porous and required urgent attention to safeguard students and learning environments.
“These schools are porous in the sense that there was no presence of security men or no fences in those schools, so that gave us a guide on how now to develop our operational strategy in terms of mutual security and safety for the schools.
“And I tell you, in doing that, what we did first was to provide the data and submit the same reports to the Federal Ministry of Education,” he said.
Audi also revealed that the corps had established specialised female squads and community security structures, which had prevented over 110 security threats against schools across the country.
“The Safe Schools Protection Squad and community engagement initiatives have significantly strengthened intelligence gathering and emergency response,” he said.
He, however, identified inadequate funding as a major challenge, noting that only a fraction of the required resources had been released for school protection operations. He described the situation as challenging, stating that running the centre under funding constraints had not been easy.
Despite this, Audi assured the minister of the corps’ commitment to deeper collaboration to guarantee safe learning environments for students nationwide.
The Federal Government reaffirmed its resolve to ensure safe, secure, and uninterrupted access to quality education across the country.
