Prof. Isaac Adewale Albert: How to Protect Nigerian Schools from Terrorists, Bandits

In this interview with Funmi Ogundare at the just concluded capacity building workshop on conflict reporting for journalists in Abuja, a professor of African History, Peace and Conflict Studies, and pioneer dean of the Faculty of Multidisciplinary Studies, University of Ibadan, Isaac Adewale Albert, explained why Nigerian schools should acquire special knowledge in security to guard against terrorism

What is your view on conflict reporting?

Conflict reporting is part of strategic communication modelling. Conflict divides society, and reporting it means that you are trying to stand between communities that are decided. To that extent, it is considered to be a delicate and specialised area. To report a divided society, you have to do things that do not make you look as if you are siding with the parties. It is actually difficult for you to divide three persons into two. You have to cut one get the second half. Conflict reporting is the most difficult aspect of journalism. Therefore, anybody venturing into that terrain must be well trained and have the right type of education, skills, and passion for the job. You must have gone to the university to acquire knowledge in your specialised area, but that does not make the person a good conflict manager.
The person must move to the second stage, which is acquiring skills in conflict management. It is not something you get in totality from the classroom. The most difficult is the passion for the job. Because when you are reporting conflict, you must venture out of your comfort zone to be able to meet the conflict parties. You meet them in a very difficult environment such as IDP camps and a society where people are being killed or a society where people are being suspected to be corrupt.

Do you think journalists are doing enough in that aspect?

Nigerian journalists are not doing enough because many were never trained on how to report conflicts. They are professionals but, reporting conflict requires additional training. The training is coming at the right time, not because journalists need to be trained in this specialised area. But it is coming when the Nigerian state is trying to get the environment of the journalists more regimented. You have more rules coming up every day from the government. So what it requires is for journalists to step back and ask themselves what they are doing right or wrong.

How does conflict affect education?

If a society is divided or the political leadership in the country is divided, definitely, it will have an effect on the education sector. For instance, the federal government is establishing new universities to please politicians who are complaining. Some of them are complaining that they are disadvantaged and there is a need to establish a university or polytechnic in their community. The question is that with all these universities and polytechnics, do we really need them, and are we actually managing the existing institutions very well? The second point is that when society is divided, as we are witnessing in Nigeria, it becomes even difficult to teach peace education very well.

It is affecting those of us who teach because in the classroom, people, even your students, read meanings into what you say. If you want to publish any paper, your paper is misinterpreted in the context of the ongoing conflict in the country. The divided nature of our society is affecting the quality of peace education because you cannot teach it the way it is taught in other parts of the world. You cannot do your scientific papers on peace. We are too suspicious of ourselves. Even those of us who teach in the classroom, many of us are even taking sides. The way forward is for all of us to maintain the ethical standard of our profession.

As a professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, my academic orientation is that you say whatever you want to say about a conflict. But you must support your points with scientific evidence and bring up theories that will strengthen your argument and numerical data that will support your position. So it is not just a matter of saying a problem is happening. No. The canon of the profession is that you are scientific. You come up with evidence and schools of thought to support your position. When you are able to do that, then you are a scholar. Whether we are doing it right or not now is debatable.

What are the effects of armed conflicts on the educational system?

The most important impact that I can actually call attention to is the armed conflict in Nigeria, and the crisis in the North-East, North-West, and North-Central is leading to the closure of schools. It started with secondary schools in Chibok and Dapchi. They went to primary schools, and now it is affecting universities in Kaduna. That means all levels of our education in Nigeria are affected. Colleges of education are affected. Polytechnics are also affected. For the schools that have been shut down in the North today, those who shut them down have not been able to provide us with alternative information of what they will do. Will these institutions remain closed forever?

How do you think Nigeria can provide quality education in conflict zones?

The federal government started the safe school initiative, supported by some international organisations. Now the theoretical understanding before establishing that structure is that now that our schools are under threat of terrorism and insurgents’ attacks, we need to begin to reflect on how to keep our schools safe. Keeping schools safe will require several things. You have the school environment itself being better structured in terms of having quality fencing and good gates. The second layer of security is to post security operatives to the schools and thirdly to ensure that the teachers and students are more security conscious by not going to areas that are vulnerable to the attacks of insurgents. The increasing numbers of schools overrun by criminals suggest that we need to do more to secure our schools.
Recently I listened to the handlers of some of the institutions that had been attacked, and we are beginning to feel that the terrorists attack more schools that are located at the outskirt of communities. If that is the case, probably, we need to relocate some of the institutions. So if in the community, the schools are located in very bushy areas or too far away from the city, it is either you relocate them, or you strengthen their security.

For institutions witnessing conflict, what strategy should administrators and teachers adopt?

They too must acquire security education because when you listen to many of the principals and teachers talk, you will realise that they don’t have terrorism prevention training. That is to say that before the attacks, nobody had ever brought them to workshops where they will be exposed to security awareness training. I think there is a need for handlers of these institutions to be given requisite security awareness training so that if any problem occurs, they will be better positioned to organise an early response.

What can journalists do to protect themselves while reporting in conflict zones?

Journalists globally face a lot of hazards in conflict environments. They want to get as close to the news as possible. The closer you try to get to that type of news, the more endangered you become. What is done in the Western world is not to ask journalists to run away from reporting. The journalists are heavily insured. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, journalists are poorly treated. Many are not paid; those paid collect pittance, and so it becomes difficult for you to even talk of insurance. The government should see journalists as partners in progress. They are considered to be the fourth estate of the realm, and for any society to function very well, you must maintain a close relationship with the media. If the government sees the media as a credible partner, I don’t see why the government should not legislate on the treatment of journalists. If all we have are just five journalists, let them be treated as their counterparts in other parts of the world. Treat them with dignity, protect them, listen to them and try to understand the hazards of their profession. When a journalist is reporting in an environment, he should get very good protection from the police, army and other security agencies in that environment. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, the state is not always happy with journalists doing their work. That makes the work more difficult. That means journalists have to force themselves into the conflict environment and making the work more difficult. We have cases of journalists who have been arrested and jailed, as well as cases of media houses that have been attacked by security operatives. We still have a long way to go. This is because we still actually see journalists as working in support of society.