Attack On UNIMAID Worrisome, Dangerous Development-Atiku

Former Vice President and Chieftain for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar, has condemned Monday’s suicide bomb attack on a mosque at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), describing it as a dangerous development to North-east education sector.

In a statement released by his media office in Abuja on Monday to condemn the attack, Atiku noted that following the February 2014 attack on the federal government College, Buni Yadi, in which 40 male students were murdered, as well as the April 2014 kidnapping of over 200 girls from their school dormitory in Chibok, Nigeria has not experienced any such act of terrorism perpetrated within a school.

“The attack on UNIMAID is not just about a bomb exploding in a mosque,” Atiku says. “Once again, education in the northeast of Nigeria is under attack.”

The former Vice President added that lack of education was one of the most alarming threats to security in the northeast, as many of the terrorists have been shown to be people who have either never had the chance or ability to read the Koran for themselves and interpret the tenets of Islam beyond the false teachings of their terrorist commanders.

“A sound education will provide our youth with the ability to analyse and make informed decisions, an opportunity that many young people in the northeast of Nigeria do not have at present, making it easy for false teachers to control them,” he said.

The Former Vice President noted that the attack on the UNIMAID mosque is particularly worrisome, having come at a time when the terrorist group was clearly degraded, saying “We cannot afford to be complacent now or in the future.”

He, however, condoled with the families of the deceased, students and staff of UNIMAID over the loss of lives and prays for the quick recovery of the injured.