Education minister asks security agencies to find Deborah Atanda’s killers

Tahir Mamman, the minister of education, has condemned the recent killing of Deborah Atanda, a nursing student of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE).

Mamman directed the vice chancellor of the institution and security agencies to uncover the perpetrators behind the act, NAN reports.

Atanda, a student in the Department of Nursing, was declared missing after she went out to study at night on September 5.

Two days later, Mufutau Ibrahim, the university’s registrar, confirmed that the student’s corpse had been discovered with her eyes gouged out.

The minister expressed concern over the spate of insecurity in schools and the nation at large, while lamenting Atanda’s death.

Mamman said this while declaring open the 2021/2022 Nigerian annual education conference (NAEC) in Abuja tagged: Implementation of Education 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Nigeria.

He pledged his commitment to bridging the gap between education policy statements and outcomes.

He said Nigeria has a lot of good policies that are not fully implemented, while adding that the administration of President Bola Tinubu is keen on getting children into schools.

“President Tinubu has directed the return of the 10.5 million out-of-school children to schools at the expiration of his tenure,” he said.

“We still have a long way to go.

“We are not matching the children in the country with the desired education and this is because our policies are not producing the values we need.

“What we need is the action on ground and not the policy declaration. This is where I can tell you we intend to come in.

“We want to bridge the gaps between policy statements and actualisation of outcomes.

“This is to give them future training that will enable them to live their lives and make them employers of labour.

“Everybody deserves to live a life of dignity for the wellbeing of their family.”