22/11/2025
Nigeria is facing yet another grave security challenge. In recent days, armed gunmen have broken into school dormitories in the north-west, abducting dozens of young girls while school staff were killed or injured.
Here’s what we know so far: in Kebbi State, 25 girls were taken from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga. During that attack, the school’s vice principal, Malam Hassan Yakubu Makuku, was shot dead while reportedly trying to protect the students. One of the abducted girls later escaped back home.
Just days later, in Niger State, gunmen struck St. Mary’s Catholic School in the Papiri/Agwara area, abducting 303 pupils and 12 teachers. The attack has sparked outrage, and the Niger State government has launched a formal investigation, especially troubling because there were earlier security warnings that boarding schools in that district should remain closed.
These incidents aren’t isolated, they fit into a heartbreaking pattern. Schools have repeatedly been targeted across the country, with criminal gangs exploiting students’ vulnerability at night, especially in remote or poorly protected boarding institutions.
These incidents are devastating, fear grips students and their families, education is disrupted, and the notion of a “safe space” for learning is dangerously eroded.
We can’t turn a blind eye any longer. It’s time to demand more than sympathy, we need real, sustained security measures. The lives of our children and their future are on the line. Beyond condemning these attacks, Protecting our children should be the immediate and highest priority for the Nigerian Government.
