daniel chigunwe
AFTER the end-of-year break, our schools are opening again tomorrow for the first term of 2025.
It’s a hectic period for parents, students and teachers.
Last week, the police sent a simple but powerful message to the school heads – the BAD BOYS are watching and are ready to pounce AGAIN.
And, amid the flurry of activity ahead of the opening of schools tomorrow, the police have urged school authorities to be vigilant because armed robbers are ready to pounce again.
Gangs of armed robbers have been striking at around this time and robbing a number of schools.
Police believe that some of the robberies are crafted with help from insiders at these schools who provide alerts that there is a significant amount of cash.
The police want school authorities to consider adopting a cashless method of payment of fees.
Criminal Investigations Department (CID) spokesperson, Detective Inspector Rachel Muteweri, said schools should enhance security measures to avoid attracting armed robbers.
Det Insp Muteweri said with regards to robbery cases, they will continue to underscore the need for learning institutions to move away from cash transactions.
She said they were urging school authorities to opt for depositing school fees directly into bank accounts, adopting cashless methods of fees payment and enhancing the security measures at their institutions.
Police investigations, Detective Inspector Muteweri noted, have shown that a number of armed robbery cases involving schools are orchestrated with the help of some staff members who disclose cash movements to the armed robbers.
A number of our schools have been hit by armed robbers who target the start of each term because they know that there will be a lot of money at the schools.
Despite the authorities bombarding school heads with messages warning them of the dangers of keeping large amounts of money at their school premises, we have seen these mistakes being repeated again and again.
We don’t understand why there is resistance among some school heads who choose to keep large sums of money at their premises rather than keeping the money at the banks.
It has given rise to suspicion that these school heads actually want the money so that they can “spin it,” which is slang for investing it in some projects for profits which they put into their pockets.
We should not give these armed robbers a window of opportunity to strike and steal from our schools.
It’s a simple thing – keep the money at the banks and you remove the chances of being attacked by these armed thugs.
It also eliminates their cronies, who work at the schools, and tip these armed robbers about the presence of money at these premises. We have seen the dangers that come with people keeping large sums of money at their homes.
We have seen a number of these people being targeted and hit by armed robbers.
These people, just like some of these school heads, decided to ignore warnings that they should keep their money at the bank.
Online Reporter