Recently, the Federal Government announced the closure of schools across the Federation for a month over voters’ registration exercise. This has been greeted with mass protests from stakeholders as they ponder whether this would ensure an obstruction in the entire exercise writes Alexander Chiejina
In recent times, the issue that has dominated the print and electronic media in the country has been whether the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would come to terms with the aspiration of Nigerians at home and Diaspora to conduct a free and fair election. This apprehension is as a result of electoral processes in the past which has been greeted with ill-will, rancor and violence.
Faced with this daunting challenge, the electoral body on its part are geared towards the forthcoming elections with the recent training of ad hoc staffs including corps members nationwide that will serve as electoral officers even during the voters’ registration exercise, procuring the Data Direct Capturing (DDC) machines as well as setting machineries on ground which would ensure a smooth electionary process.
However, in readiness for the voters’ registration exercise, the Federal Government recently announced the postponement of resumption date of all schools (primary and secondary) across the federation by one month. This move the FG say is to enable INEC, conduct a smooth voters’ registration exercise. The closure of schools was set to begin from January 10th and last till January 29th 2011.
Following this pronouncement to postpone school resumption, mixed reactions have been trailing the decision. While some schools are waiting to see the outcome of the directive before opening their gates, some are still holding meetings to decide on the next line of action. However, some school owners who may not come to terms with the disruption that the directive will unleash on their time-table are threatening to commence resumption formalities.
Just last week, school owners, under the aegis of National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS), protested the FG’s decision to close schools for the voters’ registration which began at the weekend.
The proprietors, who stormed the office of Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola at Alausa, Ikeja, carried placards with inscriptions like: Why close all?”; “Open our schools - they cost money”; “Education in Nigeria is injured already”, etc to name but a few. While frowning at the decision of the government, they appealed to the governor to prevail on the government to reopen schools.
Speaking to newsmen at Ikeja, NAPPS president, Elizabeth Kufeji, said that the closure was improper. Kufeji stated that it was necessary for the government to intervene since private schools in Ogun State would be opened during the exercise. According to her, besides the fact that NAPPS members were not privy to the decision, the exercise could be held on weekends.
While disclosing that for the three weeks the schools will be closed, the proprietors will pay workers’ salaries, Kufeji added that parents will not take the matter.
According to her “As educators, we are not going to sit back and let the future of our children be ruined. When is there no bomb blast? Was it during the voter registration that we will begin to have bomb blasts? As far as we are concerned, the security system in Lagos State is well structured. This is not the first time in Nigeria that private schools were on and public schools were shut down.
They know how to adjust the academic calendar. The Federal Government should not disturb the academic session because it is organising voter registration. The first 400 universities were shortlisted recently; no Nigerian university was listed. All these were due to frequent distortions of our academic calendar. Other private schools in neighbouring states did not close down their schools. There is no good reason schools in the country should be closed. This is not the first time we are organising voter registration in Nigeria.”
Also in disagreement with the decision to close down schools for a month due to political reasons is the Association for Formidable Educational development (AFED). Joe Ejenavi, President AFED said that those who conceived the idea didn’t have the interest of the Nigerian children at heart. Ejenavi noted that since they are not using teachers for the exercise and none of the students were eligible to vote, so why the decision to close down all the schools?
“Their children are not in Nigeria. They are all attending schools abroad, so why would they care about the poor? Right now, we are still looking at the issues involved before we take a stand. We insist that the decision is not in the best interest of the masses. The education sector is very critical to national development and subjecting it to any form of interference has to be reconsidered.”
Prior to the pronouncement, some school of thought are of the view that security of pupils was the major consideration for the extension of resumption for public and private schools in the country.
Only recently at a joint media briefing held in Abuja, INEC’s Chairman, Attahiru Jega and the Minister of State for Education, Kenneth Gbagi, attributed the growing but disturbing “do or die” attitude to politics in the country as a major reason for the extension.
The INEC boss said that the electoral body assessed the entire situation with regard to the preparations for the conduct of the registration, and requested the intervention to have schools closed within this period, in order to enable us have a successful voters’ registration exercise.
According to the INEC boss “The justifications for these are there are close to 120,000 polling units. We have done a thorough verification of the polling units, and as at the moment we know that for a fact, 119, 976 polling units are spread in public schools. In fact, in many schools, there are three to 10 polling units. Indeed, about 70 per cent of our public schools are either used as polling units or are going to be used as registration centres.
“Where we are going to store the equipment, such as DDC machines throughout the duration of the exercise and where we are going to count some of the personnel that are going to participate in the exercise. Obviously, in each school where these activities are going to take place, there is possible disruption of school activities, because thousands of people will be going into these schools to be registered and we felt that it is important that in order to avoid these disruptions, it is better that the schools are closed down during the period,” Jega stated.
No one can downplay the importance of the upcoming voter's registration. However, it is believed that INEC can achieve a successful voters' registration without closing down schools and disrupting the academic calendar.
There had been voters' registration exercises in the past and the organizers of those exercises did not have to use school premises. If such exercises were deficient in any way it was not because school compounds did not serve as venues but because the operators were insincere in the handling of the assignments.
There are civic centers, town halls and open spaces across the country where INEC can mount canopies and use as venues for the registration exercise. Even, if using schools is the only option available to the Commission, are they going to use all the classrooms in all the private and public primary and secondary schools in the country? In communities that have many schools, is the registration going to take place in all of them?
We do not see how students being at home will ensure the safety of registration materials unless the electoral body and the Federal Government are afraid that under age pupils and students in primary and junior secondary schools respectively could be, or have been, responsible for stealing election materials.
If the closure is on security grounds, it is amazing that government has assured that it will guarantee the security of students in the senior class three and cannot extend such protection to those at the lower levels.
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