The Katsina State Government says it would be deploying security dogs to protect school children in state owned boarding schools.

Katsina, like many other schools in the North, has witnessed mass kidnap of school children and the threat of reoccurrence is palpable.

Katsina Commissioner for Education, Dr Badamasi Lawal Charanchi, said that the decision was made based on an advise that dogs are more competent and effective than humans they also have the ability to inform security agents that bandits are on their way to schools, local newspaper Katsina Post reported.

“We were advised to deploy these dogs at each school because they have special abilities to detect intruders faster than human beings in many instances,” Mr Charanchi said, according to Katsina post. 

“These dogs, when deployed will alert the students and other security agents in case of any intruder or bandits when they are coming.” 

In December 2020, 344 students were abducted from a Katsina boarding school. The sad event happened at Government Science Secondary School, Kankara where they were kidnapped by bandits but they were later released after negotiations with the federal government.

Amidst the fear of bandits attacking schools, the governor of Katsina, Aminu Masari, in March ordered that boarding schools should be shut down for a while.

In addition, Mr Masari has also decided that five security guards will be sent to each boarding school alongside the dogs and a well structured fence will be constructed in boarding schools.

The governor promised that his administration will re-enforce the security architecture of boarding schools before the resumption for academic activities.