Northern Jambites Shouldn’t Get Preferential Scores – El-Rufai

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai has come out to urge the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to stop giving preferential scores to Northern students writing JAMB.

He recently revealed this as a guest on Channels Television’s “Sunrise Daily” breakfast programme, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he doesn’t agree with students in the North having lower cut-off marks while their counterparts from other parts of Nigeria maintain a certain standard.

He added that the present closure of schools in Plateau is the main goal of bandits and terrorists oppressing the state, but they will not succeed.

His words, “The north has always been behind in education, we’ve continuously been the disadvantaged region right from independence even though we’re given preferences, JAMB scores and all that. That has not helped, in fact, it has made our people lazy.”

“Against this differential JAMB and FG (Federal Government) scores, I think people should be encouraged to work hard and compete and we are prepared to make our children in Kaduna State to be competitive, not only in the state but globally.”

“The schools are closed now because, on the advice of security agencies, they need a couple of months to undertake massive security operations. They are doing that. We are confident that from the next two weeks, we would start the gradual reopening of schools.”

“We have moved many of our students in rural areas that we are not sure we can protect to urban schools, thereby increasing the congestion in urban schools that we can protect.”

“The continuous closure of schools is exactly what bandits and Boko Haram want and we are not going to let them win but we must put the safety of our children and teachers first,” the governor noted, adding that the gradual reopening of schools would commence soon.”

“This banditry is essentially a rural phenomenon but it has moved to the urban areas.”

“In the last two years, we’ve attracted more than $2bn, close to $3bn of foreign and domestic investments into the state.”

“We’ve also engaged in massive infrastructure across the state, everywhere.”