Pasepa, Zhiko, Ijabisa and Goipe communities in Bwari area council Tuesday stormed the Federal Capital Territory-Universal Basic Education Board (FCT-UBEB) to demand for a secondary school to be located in the community.
Speaking on behalf of the communities, the chief of Zhiko, Bulus Wakili, made the demand in Abuja when they accompanied media based nongovernmental organization PAGED Initiative to a meeting with the FCT-UBEB management.
Wakili lamented that children in the four communities have been exposed to different insecurities such as kidnappers, rapists, thieves due to long distance trekking along lonely routes to Niger state to assess basic education.
He stated that four years since the LEA in Bwari verbally assured them that a secondary school would be established for the communities,that promise is yet to be fulfilled, while their children suffer and some dropped out of school due to stress.
“Our children trek to Biazin in Kubwa which is very far from us and some others to Niger state to attend secondary school. They are exposed to thieves, kidnappers, rapists and during the rainy season the road gets very bad that they can’t walk and so they miss going to school.
“When our children finish primary school, we asked them to wait as a secondary school will soon be built so they don’t have to travel far to school but it is been over four years since the LEA verbally promised to build a secondary school to serve the four communities, but nothing has been done even when we wrote to them.
“We know that school certificate from schools in the FCT is better recognised than those of state levels, but we live in the FCT and it has become compulsory for our children to go to state level, we sometimes try to take our kids to school on motorcycle and thieves attacked and took our machines from us along the lonely road to the state and that is why we are appealing for a school nearby,” he said.
Responding, the executive secretary of the FCT-UBEB Mallam Hassan Sule, said the board was yet to receive any proposal for a school to be located in the community.
He added that every other area councils have submitted proposals except for Bwari and Abaji.
Sule directed the communities to formally write the LEA board as well as copy the FCT-UBEB to enable them investigate and include them in the plan as others have been captured in the budget already, while assuring that its mission is to ensure education for all in the FCT.
