Is Government Doing Anything to Make Unilag & Other Universities Safe?

One cannot be too easily impressed with the security levels at our universities or other public places of assembly for that matter. The security is grossly inadequate and unbecoming of institutions of higher learning especially in a State under the constant threat of terrorism. The students at the University of Lagos and other schools are sitting ducks should Boko Haram venture a strike.

Cultism represented the biggest threat to our schools in the nineties, during the military era.  As the threat of cultism gradually fades away, a new threat is appearing on the horizon – terrorism.

We live in a society where our leaders do not do a fraction as much for public security as they do for their private security. They build high walls around their homes, electrify their fences, buy bullet proof jeeps, and pay for police protection if it is not freely given to them by virtue of their political position.
Even with those precautions, a lot of these people are still insecure, falling victim periodically to kidnappers, armed robbers, rogue domestic staff, and even assassins.
How much more unsafe are the rest of us?

Let us focus on the heightened security threat on our campuses. There are no bomb detectors or bomb sniffing dogs at the gates of our universities. Why? The children of the elite do not go to school in Nigeria. They attend schools in Houston, Toronto, Manchester, Paris, Georgetown and a host of other foreign places where there are no terror attacks. The rest of us must roll the dice of fate with our children, and our society.

Government must begin to take more proactive measures to ensure that the country is more secure. There cannot be a return to the practice of the political elite embezzling security funds through the inflation of contracts etc.

If the President can award our water security out to a contractor that happens to be a former Niger Delta militant, then I am sure he can do more for our schools.