By ANITA KNIGHT

Nigeria’s ₦144bn Safe Schools Plan Under Strain as Pupils Return Amid Security Fears

A New School Year, Familiar Fears

MORE than 45 million pupils in Nigeria’s basic and secondary schools are returning to classrooms amid renewed concerns about their safety.

The new academic session begins against the backdrop of years of attacks on schools, mass abductions, killings and disruptions to education.

For many parents, therefore, resumption is not only about uniforms, textbooks and school fees. It is also about whether their children can leave home, reach school and return safely.

The concern persists despite the Federal Government’s Safe Schools Initiative (SSI), introduced after the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction.

The initiative was designed to protect schools, improve emergency response and strengthen cooperation between education authorities and security agencies.

Yet major vulnerabilities remain.

A Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) audit found that 78 per cent of public schools lacked perimeter fencing, while 65 per cent operated without security guards.

The figures expose a troubling gap between the promise of safe schools and conditions on the ground.

Billions Planned, But Funding Fell Short

The Federal Government developed a National Plan on Financing Safe Schools for 2023 to 2026, with an estimated investment of about ₦144.8 billion.

The plan projected ₦119.83 billion from the Federal Government and ₦24.93 billion from the states.

Annual funding targets stood at ₦32.59 billion for 2023, ₦36.99 billion for 2024, ₦37.16 billion for 2025 and ₦38.03 billion for 2026.

Actual releases, however, fell substantially below those projections.

In 2023, the government released ₦15 billion. The Nigeria Police Force received ₦6.2 billion, while the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps received ₦3.3 billion. The Defence Headquarters received ₦2.2 billion.

The Federal Government’s direct appropriation for the programme then fell sharply in 2024, from about ₦30.7 billion to ₦5.01 billion.

That represented a 67.8 per cent decline and created a funding shortfall of about ₦25.7 billion for that year.

The funding problem continued to attract scrutiny.

National Coordinator of Financing Safe Schools, Halima Iliya, told the Senate that the programme had no budget allocation in 2024 and 2025.

She explained that her request for inclusion in the 2024 budget reached President Bola Tinubu too late.

The Senate committee investigating the programme subsequently examined the ₦15 billion released in 2023 and questioned why the police received the largest share and why the programme’s results were difficult to see.

The Security Gap Around the Classroom

The national plan promised several layers of protection.

They included perimeter fencing, CCTV cameras, early-warning systems and 24-hour deployment of police and NSCDC personnel to high-risk schools.

But reports from parts of Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina and Niger suggest that many parents still see schools without fences, guards or adequate lighting.

More than 42,000 primary and secondary schools across northern Nigeria were identified as lacking perimeter fencing.

Another assessment listed 4,270 secondary schools in 21 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory as unfenced.

A missing fence may seem like an infrastructure problem. In a conflict-prone environment, however, it becomes a security vulnerability.

An unfenced school may have no controlled entrance, no clear boundary and limited capacity to detect or delay an attack.

The problem becomes more serious in rural communities where schools can stand far from settlements, police posts and other emergency-response infrastructure.

Abductions Keep the Fear Alive

The human cost of school insecurity remains significant.

Between May 2023 and June 2026, 758 students, teachers and school staff were held hostage in mass school-related attacks.

That figure reinforces why parents remain uneasy even as governments announce new security measures.

The problem also extends beyond abduction.

Attacks can disrupt academic calendars, force schools to close, push parents to withdraw children and deepen an already serious education crisis.

The Safe Schools Initiative has reportedly registered about 200,000 schools and introduced school-based interventions, community protection measures and special arrangements for high-risk areas.

But registration alone cannot guarantee safety.

A school listed on a national monitoring platform may still lack a fence, trained guards, emergency procedures, communications equipment or regular patrols.

States Build Their Own Defences

With the national programme facing funding and implementation challenges, some states are developing their own responses.

In Oyo State, the police command, working with the Police Community Relations Committee, introduced measures aimed at creating a safer learning environment.

The initiative involves school proprietors, administrators, Parent-Teacher Associations and students.

The goal is to improve early identification, reporting and prevention of threats around schools.

Katsina has also localised the national safe-school policy.

Basic Education Commissioner Yusuf Jibia said boarding schools had received stronger protection through mobile police personnel, community patrol teams and vigilante groups.

Each school, he said, had been assigned between six and 10 community patrol personnel to work with other security agencies.

Enugu is pursuing a technology-driven approach.

The state is expanding CCTV coverage, drones and command-and-control centres around schools.

Traditional rulers, community chairmen and local government chairmen have also been assigned responsibilities for school security within their wards.

These measures show that states are not waiting entirely for Abuja.

However, they also reveal the fragmented nature of Nigeria’s school-security response.

The Question of Accountability

The size of the Safe Schools budget cannot, by itself, demonstrate success.

The critical question is what the money has delivered.

Parents and education stakeholders need clearer information.

Government could publish, at least on a state-by-state basis, how many schools have received perimeter fencing, surveillance systems, emergency communication equipment and security patrols.

It could also disclose the number of teachers trained in emergency response, funds released to implementing agencies and schools that remain classified as high-risk.

Such information would allow Nigerians to measure outcomes rather than simply track allocations.

The national monitoring system has expanded rapidly. It listed 11,550 schools in November 2025 and 169,478 by September 2026.

But registration must lead to intervention.

Otherwise, the growing number becomes an administrative statistic rather than evidence of safer schools.

Education Funding Has Another Problem

School security is also tied to the broader education budget.

According to a Nigerian Economic Summit Group report, education allocation rose from ₦2.36 trillion in 2024 to ₦2.59 trillion in 2025.

Yet capital expenditure fell from ₦1.15 trillion to ₦938.58 billion.

That 18.1 per cent decline matters because infrastructure, security installations and rehabilitation depend heavily on capital spending.

When recurrent costs consume more resources, schools can remain without functional buildings, adequate facilities and security infrastructure.

Parents Face a Second Crisis

Security is not the only concern confronting families.

The cost of returning to school has also increased.

Private-school proprietors have defended fee increases of up to 30 per cent, citing higher fuel costs, rent and salaries.

Transport costs have also increased sharply in many cities.

Families must now budget for tuition, uniforms, textbooks, examination charges, meals, transportation and, increasingly, technology-related fees.

For households with several children, those expenses can consume a large part of monthly income.

The easing of inflation does not mean prices have returned to their previous levels.

Nigeria’s headline inflation stood at 15.43 per cent in July 2026, while food inflation rose to 20.31 per cent.

Fuel costs add another layer of pressure.

They affect school buses, public transport, staff commuting, generator use and the movement of food and educational materials.

Parents consequently face a difficult choice: pay higher school costs, move children to cheaper schools, delay payments or reduce attendance.

Schools face their own dilemma.

If they absorb rising costs, they may have less money for salaries, maintenance and security. If they transfer the costs to parents, more families may struggle to keep their children in school.

Unnecessary Costs Add to the Burden

Government has also criticised practices that increase the financial burden on families without improving learning.

These include compulsory purchases of single-use textbooks and workbooks and expensive graduation ceremonies for nursery pupils.

Parents may spend money on books that younger siblings cannot reuse, even when the content changes little.

Some schools also organise elaborate nursery graduation ceremonies that require families to pay for gowns, photography, decorations, gifts and parties.

Such expenses may appear small individually. Across millions of families, however, they become substantial.

The broader issue is whether schools can reduce avoidable costs while protecting the quality and safety of education.

What Private Schools Are Doing

Private-school operators say they are not leaving security entirely to government.

The National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools said its members had strengthened security arrangements ahead of resumption.

Its National President, Chief Yomi Otubela, said schools were expected to improve access control, perimeter security, surveillance, lighting and the management of entry and exit points.

He also urged schools to assess risks within their communities and identify vulnerabilities before incidents occur.

The Association for Formidable Educational Development has similarly urged schools to maintain secure fences and properly manned gates.

Its President, Orji Kanu, said access should be restricted to people with legitimate reasons to enter school premises.

He added that AFED, working with development partners and trainers, had provided safeguarding and emergency-response training.

The association also encourages schools to maintain relationships with community security groups so they can respond quickly during emergencies.

Safety Must Become a Measurable Outcome

Nigeria’s Safe Schools Initiative was created to prevent tragedies, not merely to create another government programme.

The ₦144.8 billion financing plan demonstrates the scale of the challenge.

But the continued presence of unfenced schools, inadequate staffing and repeated attacks suggests that funding announcements have not yet translated into universal protection.

As the 2026/2027 academic year begins, the test is straightforward.

Can children attend school without their parents fearing abduction?

Can teachers work without becoming targets?

Can schools identify threats before attackers arrive?

And can security agencies respond quickly when something goes wrong?

The answers will determine whether Nigeria’s safe-school policy becomes a functioning protection system or remains a promise that families continue to hear while confronting insecurity at the school gate.

For millions of pupils returning to class, safety is not an abstract policy objective.

It is the condition that makes education possible.