Sokoto: Police deploy 5,000 for Jonathan’s visit

APRIL 10, 2012 BY JOHN ALECHENU, ABUJA 

President Goodluck Jonathan
| credits: File copy

Sokoto State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Aliyu Musa, said on Monday that about 5,000 police personnel had been mobilised to provide security during President Goodluck Jonathan official visit to the state on Tuesday (today).

He said all the assistant commissioners of police had been assigned to each of the identified routes President was expected to pass through.

He added that officers had been briefed on security modalities they were expected to adopt during and after Jonathan’s visit.

The security arrangement is preparatory to the inauguration of the N240m Almajiri Model School by President.

The school is one of the several promised by the President during his campaign.

Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, told journalists at a pre-inauguration press-Conference in Sokoto on Monday that all was set for the event.

According to him, the money provided by the fund, takes care of the construction of classroom blocks, provision equipment and furnishing of the school, provision of textbook as well as capacity building for the teachers.

Yakubu explained that this was part of efforts by the Federal Government to get over 9.5 million almajiris off Nigerian streets.

He said the President instructed the Minister of Education to build model boarding and day schools, especially in the northern part of the country where most of this category of school children were found.

The programme took off with the inauguration of the programme in Jigawa in December 2010.

The TETFund boss said, “The Federal Government, through the fund, has mapped out N5bn for construction, equipping, furnishing as well as provision of books for 10 model boarding and 20 day schools across the country.”

Yakubu also said the model boarding school in Sokoto was part of the first phase of the Federal Government’s effort to take almajiris out of the streets.

SOURCE: The Punch, 10 April 2012. http://www.punchng.com/