Keep Our Schools Safe: An Open Letter to the President

Your Excellency,

I am Fateemah, a patriotic Nigerian in the diaspora, flying the nation’s flag and holding firmly to the hope of a better Nigeria. I served my country as an educator and advocate of education equity and I carry on advocating for the linguistic inclusion of Nigerians, and indeed, Africans abroad.

I write to you with a heavy heart, on behalf of mothers, fathers, teachers, students, and countless Nigerians who believe education is our greatest hope, yet fear for its safety. Each day, we pray our children will go to school… and return home to us in one piece.

The crisis is real. And it’s growing. Your Excellency, schools in Nigeria are under siege, to state the obvious. In recent years, we have witnessed repeated attacks, kidnappings, and violence, turning places of learning into sites of terror.

Just this month, gunmen abducted 315 people from St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger State, including 303 students and 12 teachers, four days after 25 students of Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga in Kebbi State, were whisked away. In other parts of the country, schoolchildren remain vulnerable to kidnapping and violence. The very future of Nigeria itself is being held hostage. These attacks are not random, Your Excellency. They are deliberate assaults on education, on hope.

Your Excellency, our children deserve better than fear. They deserve to learn, to grow, to dream, and to reach their full potential. Yet:

In 2014, 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped from Chibok, Borno State. Fewer than 200 have been officially accounted for: escaped, released, or rescued.

In more recent times, children continue to be abducted, their schools turning into battlegrounds, their families into desperate supplicants. What is the fate of these children, Your Excellency?

Global examples show it can be done. Your Excellency, you are not alone in this fight for school safety. Around the world:

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack released an open letter from children living in conflict zones, calling for “safe schools in the Sahel now.”

Save the Children, in Nigeria, has written to presidents, including former President Buhari, demanding protection for students under the Safe School Declaration.

Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai wrote an open letter to the Chibok schoolgirls, appealing directly to Nigeria’s leaders to secure their freedom.

Today, I write, appealing to your office to keep our schools safe. Our collective voices are determined. We demand accountability.

Your Excellency, the time to act is now. We call on you to implement the National Policy on Safety, Security, and Violence-Free Schools (NPSSV-FS) in full, without delay, increase security funding for schools, especially in vulnerable zones, including the deployment of well-trained security personnel, safe transport systems, and rapid response units.

We call on you to develop a transparent recovery plan for abducted students in partnership with international organisations and civil society; strengthen community engagement, ensuring parents, local leaders, and teachers are part of strategy design and implementation; report progress publicly with measurable benchmarks, so that Nigerians can hold the government accountable.

Your Excellency, this is more than a policy. It is a legacy. If our children cannot learn safely, then Nigeria cannot rise safely.

By protecting schools, you do more than save lives. You save dreams. You save futures. You secure peace. Please, do not fail our children. Again. Do not allow schools to remain battlegrounds.

Do not let fear be the barrier between a child and their education. We demand safety. We demand accountability. We demand peace. And we will not rest until our schools are truly safe.

Yours faithfully,

Fateemah Yoosuf-Ibraheem,

Founder, Educom Africa

[email protected]

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