The senate has ordered the Minister of Education, Rufai Rukiyat to reopen all schools closed for the voter registration exercise as soon as possible, but not later than Friday 28 January.
The senate gave the order on Tuesday when it reconvened after four weeks vacation for the Christmas and the various party primaries that were held up till last week.
The order followed a motion brought before the senate by Victor Ndoma Egba (PDP Cross River State) seeking a redress of the problems caused by the ongoing voter registration.
Mr Ndoma said it was wrong for the executive to close both private and public schools for voter registrations even though not all the schools’ premises are being used for the registration.
All secondary and primary schools across the nation were closed following a directive by the federal government to enable the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) use the schools’ premises for the voter registration project which was scheduled to last two weeks.
The order has been widely criticised by the public and the senate said they were acting on the concerns of the public which they represent.
Ill advised
Mr Ndoma said that closing the schools means “sacrificing the future of our children for political gains.” According to Ayogu Eze, the senate spokesman, even though the directive to close the schools was that of the executive, it was ill advised, and therefore it is their duty and responsibility as representatives of the people to redress it.
“Nigerians frown even when it happened that this was the proper thing to do,” he said. “We cannot withdraw our future and expend it on the expediency of the present, because pulling the children out of schools is like spending your future savings for today and I think it was something Nigerians spoke out about and that is why as their representatives we are now speaking to the executive branch that this their decision was wrong in the first instance.” He added that the decision to close schools should not have happened because most of the private schools and public school are not registration centres.
“It was an instruction that was wrong and I hope they (federal government) are going to pay compensation to the schools, because when you shut down schools for that period, a lot of degeneration will happen, a lot of things will happen. The government is not contributing one naira to the private schools; if I were a school owner I will never obey it. People don’t just wake up and pass instruction without thinking of the consequences of such instructions,” Mr Eze added.
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