President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the detention and cruelty meted out to about 300 persons by a supposed Islamic centre at Rigasa, Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
He reiterated that it was still a crime under Nigeria’s laws to keep a child of primary and junior secondary school age out of school.
The President commended the police for their efforts in freeing the individuals from the “horrifying spectacle as an Islamic school.”
The building housing the Islamic centre had been raided by the police on September 26.
About about 300 boys and men, some of whom were chained were rescued during the raid while seven teachers of the centre, including its proprietor, Ismaila Abubakar, were arrested.
Abubakar has insisted he did nothing wrong than teach the detainees Islam while the parents of some of the rescued children also disputed the claims of the police that the children were abused.
Some of the victims who were as young as five years old said they had been held captive for years. They also said they were tortured, sexually abused and starved.
The President in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu on Saturday, insisted that children must be kept safe from all evil.
The statement read: “We are glad that the Muslim authorities have dismissed the notion of the embarrassing and horrifying spectacle as an Islamic school.
“The place has indeed been described as a house of torture and a place of human slavery.
“The President holds the view that children will be safeguarded from roaming the streets and protected from all evil influences that assail idle hands and minds when they are sent to school.
“When he inaugurated the National Economic Council for the year 2019/2023 at the Presidential Villa, in Abuja, President Buhari warned that keeping children away from school was a criminal offence.
“He also stressed the need to take seriously and enforce the statutory provisions on free and compulsory basic education, citing Section 18(3) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, which he said placed on all of us (public leaders and political office holders) an obligation to eradicate illiteracy and provide free and compulsory education.
“He added that Section 2 of the Compulsory Free Universal Basic Education Act provides that every government in Nigeria shall provide free, compulsory and universal basic education for every child of primary and junior secondary school age.
“It is indeed a crime, he stressed, for any parent to keep their pupil child out of school for this period.
“While the government at the centre has introduced a number of programmes, including the school feeding programme, which is now in 32 states in the country, with 9.8 million children beneficiaries to encourage school enrolment and enhance the health and learning capabilities of pupils, state and local
Governments are obliged under the law to ensure that every child of school age goes to school throughout the crucial nine years of basic education.
“To stop unwanted cultural practices that amount to the abuse of children, our religious and traditional authorities must work with the federal, state and local governments to expose and stop all types of abuse that are widely known but ignored for many years by our communities.”
Meanwhile, the Kaduna Police Command on Saturday handed over the rescued persons to the state government .
