Boko Haram Wins in Nigeria

The Nigerian government, in response to attacks on schools that have left many children dead, has made the decision to shut down 85 schools in the northern portion of the country. This decision affects 120,000 students.



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"We have run out of excuses for our failure to live up to our responsibility to protect our innocent defenceless children from gratuitous violence," the speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, told legislators at a special session last week to mourn the latest victims – 59 students killed at a boarding school in neighbouring Yobe state on 25 February. Extremists locked some of the students into a dormitory and set it alight.

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The school closures could have far-reaching consequences, including ending the education of some students in a region where few ever have the opportunity to get to high school, said the chairman of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission, Chidi Anselm Odinkalu. "The average secondary school enrolment is slightly under 5% (in north-eastern Nigeria), so I think it's easy to understand that you cannot overestimate what the consequences of this could be, given the parlous state of education in the region and the fact that, clearly, whoever is orchestrating this is focused on targeting schools, educational institutions," he said.

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