In September 2019, el-Rufai enrolled Abubakar, who was then six years old, as a primary one pupil of Kaduna Capital school.
Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, says he withdrew Abubakar, his son, from a public school because kidnappers were targeting him.
In September 2019, el-Rufai enrolled Abubakar, who was then six years old, as a primary one pupil of Kaduna Capital school.
According to the governor, his decision to send Abubakar to a public school was a way of showing his commitment to fixing public education and raising the standards.
In March 2021, SaharaReporters exclusively reported that el-Rufai had withdrawn the boy from the school.
Speaking on Thursday during the weekly ministerial briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the State House, Abuja, the governor said he “temporarily” withdrew his child from the school because some people wanted to mount a special operation to kidnap him.
He added that his government had hired more people than it had sacked in the last five years, adding that 7,700 qualified secondary school teachers have been recruited and would be deployed once he was done purging secondary schools of underqualified teachers.
“We fired 22,000 teachers and hired 25,000. We have tested them recently; some of them have fallen back and failed. We are going to fire them and hire more people. We are determined to improve teacher quality because the teacher is education, it’s not the classroom.
“We all thought the thugs were going to primary schools. Now we have to get rid of some teachers in secondary schools as well. But we have hired about 7,700 secondary school teachers. They are just standing by for us to ease these ones out. And we have taken a decision as public officers to enrol our children in public schools.
“I took my child to public school because we want to show that we believe in the quality of public education which we all got and that I had to pull my son out because some people wanted to mount a special operation to kidnap him. I don’t think they will succeed, but it will put other children at risk.
“So I pulled him out. So he’s getting home-schooling until the situation improves,” the governor explained.