After a 19-month lull, the ugly story of mass school abductions returned to the news headlines when gunmen stormed Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State, in North-West Nigeria. The assault, which took place at 4.00am, claimed the life of the Vice-Principal, Hassan Yakubu Makuku, while 25 girls were swept into captivity.

The last major such incident took place in Kuriga town, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, when bandits struck at the Government Secondary School. They carted away the second highest number of school children, 287 (comprising 137 primary pupils and 150 secondary students), compared with 276 for the Chibok Schoolgirls abduction of April 14, 2014, the first ever such incident in Nigeria. The Kankara School abduction in Katsina State involved over 300 boys, the highest so far.

Nigeria and Afghanistan are the only countries where Islamic terrorists have engaged in mass school abductions, mainly because of the similarity of their jihadist ideologies that forbid Western education, especially for girls. But in Nigeria, the North-West bandits have, just like their Boko Haram splinter group peers, regularly engaged in school abductions, mainly for ransom taking.

Islamists, notably Taliban in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2014 attacked schools and killed over 140 students. Al Shabbab in Somalia also engages in school massacres.

Since the maiden Chibok Schoolgirls abductions over eleven years ago, Muslim terrorists have been involved in no less than 18 mass school abductions across Borno, Yobe, Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi and Niger states. All school abductions have been reported in the North. According to media reports and also figures supplied by groups like Amnesty International, Save the Children, Human Rights Watch and UNICEF, between 1,600 and 1,700 children were affected as of November 2025.

School abductions and jihadist attacks on schools have worsened the educational disadvantage associated with Northern Nigeria, with over 80 per cent of Nigeria’s Out-of-School Children (the largest in the world) found in the region.

These ugly incidents, along with the incessant killings by these insurgent and bandits groups, give Nigeria a very ugly image. Our inability to protect our children in their schools, or our citizens in their communities and farmlands from ragtag armed groups paints a sordid picture of state failure.

It calls, once again, for the need for the Federal Government to partner with the states, local governments, communities and organised groups in a restructured security architecture of the nation. The challenge is beyond federal agencies alone. We must share this work. We must also increase intel and embrace satellite and drone technologies for close surveillance. These have proved very successful in a state like Enugu, in overcoming security challenges. These bandit groups are proliferating because of ransom payments through “peace negotiations”.