The University of Maiduguri has been able to successfully continue operations even in the midst of Boko Haram's insurgency attacks. The institution was able to protect its students from the terrorist group.
Quartz reported that the University of Maiduguri is one of Nigeria's major higher institutions of learning. The school has continued to operate in spite of the fact that the city where it is located is best known nowadays as the place where Boko Haram was created.
University authorities and officials of the Civilian Joint Task Force, Borno Command, noted that the school has not experienced an incident of violent extremism in its campus. Habu Kale Tijjani, a local and State Coordinator of Borno Social Media Frontiers confirmed that the University of Maiduguri has continued to run undisturbed.
It was clarified that the peace and order was not caused by Boko Haram's indifference to the school. Young men from universities are prime candidates for terrorist organizations since they are both intelligent and impressionable. This means that they can carry out complicated commands in the name of a cause.
One student from the university revealed that Boko Haram has tried to attack the campus several times. The student revealed that intelligence agents were scattered across the campus and worked with university guards and the military to thwart the terrorist group's takeover.
Boko Haram was able to get students to join them off-campus, though. "Some UNIMAID students followed and converted to the Boko Haram sect. Many even destroyed their university documents," Habu Kale Tijjani, a civil society activist, revealed.
Prof. Aliyu Shugaba, the university's deputy vice chancellor in charge of Academic Services, added that the school decided to continue operations because they did not want students to return to their homes where Boko Haram militants were already in charge. If the school did shut down, it would mean that their students would be forced to join the group or killed if they resisted.
