The Nigeria Police Force has announced the launch of Schools Protection Squad, SPS, in Kano State.

The 60-man squad was inaugurated by the Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Gumel, on Thursday at the police command headquarters in Kano.

The squad is to protect schools, learning facilities, students and pupils as well as their teachers from kidnappers and armed bandits.

Gumel said the SPS was an initiative of the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, Kayode Ebegtokun to adequately provide a safe environment for schooling and protect both the students and teachers as well as the schools’ facilities and their critical infrastructures.

This development is coming few weeks after Nigerian prophet, Primate Elijah Ayodele called on the government to quickly strategize on protecting Nigerian academic institutions as he foresees kidnap attacks.

Primate Ayodele has been calling for more security in Nigerian schools but renewed the call after the kidnap incident involving Kaduna pupils. He stated then that a new syndicate has started making more plans on kidnapping primary and secondary schools in the country starting from the north.

He urged governments to be on alert to avoid putting pupils in danger.

These were his words;

“It is no longer Boko Haram or any existing group that is behind these kidnappings, it is a new group and they will soon name it. It’s a new terrorism syndicate that must be defeated. We should commit our military in prayers to defeat terrorism; we must not allow terrorists to ruin this government.

‘’These terrorists want to scare people from going to school, they want to destroy the future of this country but Tinubu shouldn’t agree. He should cooperate with the security outfits to defeat terrorism.

‘’If the government doesn’t act on this, they are ready to move to other states. The government must wake up and curb this now if not, school children will be kidnapped in other states apart from the north.’’

This is indeed a commendable step by the Nigeria police force and of course, it would go a long way in protecting academic institutions from the attacks of these dare-devils.