Why Boko Haram targets schools; killed 272 Nigerian teachers, turned 19,000 others into internally displaced persons
By Rotimi Akinola
No, they did not sign up to be killed.
All they did was serve as breeders of future thinkers, future leaders. But then, terrorist group Boko Haram decided it was better to rid Nigeria of everything “Western,” including the education only teachers can give.
It is Boko Haram’s anti-education ideology that drove the terrorists into kidnapping the Chibok schoolgirls whom the Nigerian government is yet to rescue.
The activities of the insurgents are not only directed at officers who protect the government Boko Haram seek to replace with an Islamic Caliphate. The extremists also wage war on those who seek to shape positive ideology through proper education.
This is why students and teachers are default targets.
At least 272 Nigerians who ventured into teaching have been killed by the insurgents in recent time, President of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), Micheal Olukoya, told newsmen as teachers commemorate NUT’s founders days in Abuja, Wednesday.
Thirty-seven among these were blown to premature deaths in the last one week.
Those are the slain painfully separated from their mourning children; bereaved wives; and devastated siblings, parents and relations.
Olukoya said several other teachers who were victims of the Zaria bomb blast are in critical condition in various health centres in Kaduna state.
Those who were able to escape explosive deaths and injuries have not had it easy as over 19,000 teachers have been displaced in the terror-torn northeast of Nigeria since Boko Haram turned deadly.
This huge figure joins the over three million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria – a section of the populace whistle-blowers say the government is not doing enough to care for.
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