FAVOUR ISHEMBER, Abuja
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) have pledged to collaborate on enhancing security in tertiary institutions and promoting research on national security challenges.
The partnership was announced during a visit by NSCDC Commandant General Prof. Ahmed Abubakar Audi to TETFUND headquarters in Abuja.
The proposed MoU would involve TETFUND supporting NSCDC’s training infrastructure and providing specialized security training for TETFUND staff.
Specking during the visit, TETFUND Executive Secretary, Engr. Sonny Echono, expressed appreciation for President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of Prof. Audi, highlighting the importance of security in the education sector.
“As it is customary, whenever we have one of our own anywhere, we lend support to ensure that they achieve your mandate. Because we also guaranteed that they reciprocate this in ensuring that the education sector in Nigeria is reposition to be able to be globally competitive”.
Echono noted that TETFUND has been working to improve campus security and is now partnering with NSCDC to develop a security master plan for tertiary institutions.
“The issue of security, is so important to us at TETFUND and indeed to the entire education sector. And again we want to seize this opportunity to thank you for your service”.
“We did collaborate during my last tour of duty in the education sector. I recall the inter-ministerial committee; I think you were even the secretary of the committee at the time.
” I thank you for the wonderful work we did to try and find ways of securing our schools. The Safe Schools initiative, as he mentioned, was a key element where we also tried to rally support, mobilize support. But the thing with security is that, a lot of what is done, is done behind closed doors, behind the cameras”.
The proposed collaboration includes training security personnel, research on security challenges, and sharing intelligence.
“Regards to the three areas of support and collaboration that you highlighted, first is the part of campus security. In the last couple of years, TETFUND has taken a number of initiatives and we have been collaborating with sister agencies of yours in various ways to try and see how we can improve security in our campus. We have even only recently, about a month ago, we had a stakeholders engagement involving all heads of security and leaders of our various institutions to try and see how we can even fashion out a security master plan for our various campuses, but we recognize in the process, that the big elephant, the people who have the direct mandate for that were not in the room. Which was part of the reasons why behind the scene engagements and today’s event are taking place. So, we want to assure the Nigerian people and all our tertiary institutions, that what they are seeing today is the beginning concerted effort”
“That we would collaborate with the Nigerian security and civil defence corp to try and take measures to guarantee the safety of the young men, young women, the lecturers, and those who are trying to provide education for our children throughout all our tertiary educational institutions in the country”
Echono emphasized the link between natural resources and insecurity, citing examples from Zamfara and the Niger Delta, where conflicts over oil and minerals have fueled violence.
“We will also be encouraging members of your service, and your research Department to take advantage of that opportunity so we can also collaborate along finding solutions to some of the intractable security challenges we have. And we heard from some the Commander and general, the nexus that we now have between mining, and everybody knows, that usually it is wherever you have some of these precious metals or you have resources, that you people go and make them ungovernable so that they can smuggle them and so that they carry out their illegal activities without formal structures to regulate them.
“So we see what is happening in Zamfara, when we use to have problems in the Niger delta, it was because of the oil that was there. Now mining has become a major issue, we were told that even the issue of boko haram and these metamorphosis had to do with some minerals. So you can see the products of research in solving national problems, the role that research can play. That is why education is seen as the bedrock of society, in various ways not only in producing personnel”.
He encouraged NSCDC researchers to tap into TETFUND’s national research fund, which has a thematic area dedicated to security.
“We have a national research fund granting committee, it is a granting that monitoring committee. We have programs in 14 thematic areas. It was only last year or two years ago, that we added security as a separate, thematic area, ad we encourage research in various areas, aspects of security”.
During the meeting, Prof. Audi emphasized the NSCDC’s commitment to securing educational institutions and critical national assets.
The partnership will also involve training NSCDC personnel and collaborating with their training institutions to enhance career progression and academic research.
TETFUND’s Board of Trustees has recognized the importance of security and will make provisions for security-related initiatives in their disbursement guidelines.
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