Jonathan: My Administration Built Almajiri Schools to Counter Extremism, Empower Northern Youths

**Linus Aleke in Abuja **

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has said that his administration established Almajiri schools across northern Nigeria to deny extremist groups access to potential recruits and provide young people with technical education that would empower them economically beyond religious instruction.

Jonathan made this revelation yesterday during the public presentation and formal launch of ‘Beyond the Bullets: Policing Terrorism in a Democratic System,’ a book authored by former Inspector-General of Police (IG), Mohammed Dikko Abubakar (rtd.).

President Jonathan’s administration built no fewer than 121 Almajiri schools across northern Nigeria.

However, the schools have become shadows of their former selves, as successive administrations have abandoned the project despite its laudable aims and objectives.

Speaking as the chairman of the occasion, Jonathan said successive administrations since the beginning of the Fourth Republic had been confronted with terrorism and other forms of violent insecurity.

Represented by his former Chief of Staff, Mike Oghiadomhe, Jonathan said: “Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, successive administrations have had to confront terrorism and other forms of violent insecurity in our country. Each administration has faced its own circumstances and challenges and has, in different ways, sought to protect the lives and property of Nigerians and preserve the territorial integrity of our nation.

“As President, working with the author and other key security heads, I also confronted this scourge and made every effort, within the circumstances and resources available to my administration, to strengthen our security response and protect our citizens.

“I believe the author has pointed out the fact that the fight against terrorism is not the responsibility of one administration or another. It is a continuing national and global challenge that requires sustained commitment, institutional learning and co-operation across successive governments and generations.

“This is what makes Beyond the Bullets particularly valuable. The title itself suggests that the response to terrorism must go beyond the use of kinetic force, which I fully believe in.

“In furtherance of this, my administration established Almajiri schools aimed at providing skills to millions of young people beyond religious education alone. This was intended to enable them to earn a living and contribute meaningfully to national development, while reducing the number of young people available for recruitment into violent crime.

“We also engaged in the Great Green Wall Project, which, apart from helping to combat desertification and making more fertile land available for crop farming and animal husbandry, had the potential to provide employment for hundreds of thousands of people. I therefore use this opportunity to call on the government to revisit and review these programmes,” Jonathan explained.

On his part, a former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki urged Nigerians not to leave the fight against insurgency and other forms of violent extremism to the military and police alone.

He described the author as not only a professional police officer but also an incorruptible one.

Saraki recalled that, while serving as Governor of Kwara State, he travelled to Abuja with his late father to lobby behind the scenes for Abubakar not to be redeployed from the state, where he served as Commissioner of Police, because of his efforts to maintain peace and security.

According to Saraki: “He should have left Kwara much earlier. Every time they wanted to post him out, my father, of blessed memory, and I would go behind the scenes and make sure they retained him because he was so important to maintaining the stability and security of the state. Eventually, of course, he had to leave to further his career and become an IG.”

Also speaking, the IG, Olatunji Disu, said the book was a profound reminder that the true power of policing did not lie in the barrels of guns, “but in the strength of our values, the rule of law and the trust of the people we serve”.

Disu said the book offered policymakers, security practitioners, scholars and the general public a valuable insight into the dilemmas, decisions and discipline that define leadership at the highest level of policing.

The chief launcher, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, said the former IG had made remarkable contributions to the fight against terrorism in Nigeria.

In his remarks, the author, Abubakar, charged the military and other security agencies to remain professional in carrying out their constitutional mandates.

He warned security personnel against succumbing to the temptation to replicate the very practices they were trained to prevent.