PILA calls for adequate insurance cover for schools

With the increasing spate of terrorism and attack on schools exacerbated by the abduction of over 200 Chibok schoolgirls more than 50 days ago in Borno State, the Professional Insurance Ladies Association of Nigeria (PILA) has emphasised the need to protect the schools with adequate insurance. PILA believes that though insurance would not bring back the dead, it would compliment efforts of government in providing security and reduce national waste.

Yetunde Adenuga-Alatise, PILA president, made the call to buttress the request of Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), imploring the Federal Ministry of Education to arrange insurance scheme/cover for students and teachers, especially in remote and sensitive areas.

“Insurance is a mechanism to alleviate suffering. Though money cannot replace lives lost in these areas, it can alleviate the suffering of their dependents and beneficiaries. Moreover, property worth billions of naira was also destroyed in the happenings in all the states involved in the mayhem,” she said.

Adenuga-Alatise, who spoke at the PILA campaign themed ‘Release Our Girls Now and Alive’, seized the opportunity to call on President Goodluck Jonathan to as a matter of urgency ensure that both the states and federal government embrace insurance and also make adequate provision for prompt premium payment in order to minimise losses incurred as a result of mayhem in our nation.

“We the members of the Professional Insurance Ladies Association (PILA) in collaboration with the Insurance Institute of Nigeria stand here to lend our voice to the teeming voices of mothers all over the world calling for the release of our innocent girls. We believe continuous and collective demand for their release will hasten people in authority and government to respond in a tactical way to find a positive end to the suffering of our girls,” she said.

She noted that the Chibok incident was an eye opener to the momentary failure in the security system in the schools and nation, adding that the safety and security of the children must not be politicised under any circumstance.

The PILA president stated further that if the girls were held hostage for too long by their abductors, the psychological implication on the girls would be devastating as girls within that region would definitely abandon schools and their future would become uncertain. She therefore demanded that government should step up ongoing effort to free the girls from captivity.