Kidnapping: Don’t take pupils out of school without armed escort, Lagos police warn school owners

— asked schools to improve safety measures

By Samuel Ogunsona

In line with the directives of the Inspector General of Police, Mr Kayode Egbetokun, the Lagos police command has asked School proprietors not to take students out of the school without police armed escort.

Most schools often impose excursion in their students usually without police escort and mostly driven by financial gains while sports and social activities are held outside the school without any form of security

The police also urged school proprietors to take precautions on student’s safety.

The Area Commander in charge of Area C, ACP Oladunni Ayoola during a meeting with school owners in Lagos held at the command headquarters on Wednesday regretted that there are many security lapses in private and public schools.

He said many schools have no tracker in school buses while adequate measures were not taken to protect young ones.

Ayoola called on schools to adopt technology as measures to guarantee students safety in and outside school premises.

He said, “So many schools are not properly secure. So many schools are not adopting the use of technology in what they are doing. So many schools are not tracking the buses they use in carrying the children to school. Some of them don’t make use of the police when organising events.

According to him “It is for us to lecture them to let them know that you cannot organise any event or take your children out of the school jurisdiction without having a police escort with them because we have been directed from the Force Headquarters to ensure that all our schools are properly safe and secure. This means if you are a school manager, you must work with us to provide a safe school environment.”

Ayoola who stressed that the meeting was in line with the directives of the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, on school security which was passed across to Area Commanders by the state Commissioner of Police, Adegoke Fayoade.

He said, “On August 8, 2023, the IGP launched a programme on the issue of school security. It is on that basis that the CP directed all Area Commanders in the state to convene a security summit with the school managers to ensure that we have safe school environment.

“You can see the number of schools we have here. They are all ready to collaborate with the police for us to have safe and secure learning institutions. You can see the number of schools we have in attendance. They are all ready to collaborate with the security agencies.”

“DPO’s numbers will be shared across incase of any issue” Ayoola assured.