Safe School Initiative: FG to enlist hunters

The National Coordinator, Financing Safe Schools Initiative, Mrs Halima Iliya, says plans are underway to actively engage hunters and vigilantes in intelligence gathering to curb attacks on schools across the country.

Iliya gave this indication in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja.

She said aggressive community engagements and sensitisation of students, parents and teachers would kick off in the second quarter of the year.

“As a component of the plan, for states with local vigilantes, we intend to train their hunters, vigilantes and volunteers while for states without registered vigilantes, we intend to advocate to use youths.

“Youths will volunteer to protect their communities because we cannot achieve anything within a community without their involvement.

“We will bring them to the security architecture for them to defend and protect their communities in the areas of intelligence gathering, prevention and detection deterrent capabilities,” Iliya said.

She added that her agency engaging would work with the National Orientation Agency to reach out to the grassroots. Punch