ABUJA, November 28 (IPS) – On the morning of 17 November 2025, darkness cloaked Maga city within the Danko/Wasagu Native Authorities Space, Kebbi State, till gunfire shattered the silence. It was round 4 am when armed attackers stormed the Authorities Ladies Complete Secondary Faculty, firing into the air to terrify residents earlier than heading to the employees quarters. There, they killed two, together with Hassan Yakubu, the college’s Chief Safety Officer after which kidnapped 26 feminine college students.
Two later escaped, stated Halima Bande, the state’s commissioner for Fundamental and Secondary Training. This brazen raid got here lower than 72 hours after the killing of Brigadier-Common Musa Uba in an ambush by the insurgents.
A rescue mission by Nigerian troopers to intervene in Kebbi’s abduction was itself ambushed and injured by the insurgents, heightening fears that such violence is spiraling past the attain of typical safety responses.
Since then, 24 ladies have been launched, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu introduced.
Abubakar Fakai, whose 9 nieces are among the many 26 kidnapped schoolgirls, advised IPS that his household and the complete neighborhood have been plunged into insufferable grief.
A father of 4 of the kidnapped ladies, Ilyasu Fakai, continues to be in shock. Nearly each family within the close-knit village has been affected. For greater than every week they acquired no credible details about the ladies’ situation or whereabouts, Abubakar stated.
“Each night time we attempt to sleep, however we will’t, as a result of we preserve pondering of the ladies mendacity someplace on naked floor, scared and chilly. These are teenage ladies, and we concern for his or her dignity and their lives. We simply need the federal government to rescue them rapidly and reunite them with us. This ache is an excessive amount of for our neighborhood to bear,” he advised IPS.
The Kebbi raid was one in all a number of mass abductions that occurred inside days of one another.
At the least 402 folks, primarily schoolchildren, have been kidnapped in 4 states within the north-central area—Niger, Kebbi, Kwara and Borno—since 17 November, the UN human rights workplace, OHCHR, stated on Tuesday.
Name to Authorities
“We’re shocked on the current surge in mass abductions in north-central Nigeria,” OHCHR Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan stated in Geneva.
“We urge the Nigerian authorities—in any respect ranges—to take all lawful measures to make sure such vile assaults are halted and to carry these accountable to account.”
A day after the Kebbi incident, a church was attacked in Eruku, Kwara; two had been killed and about 38 kidnapped throughout a stay church session. State Gov. AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, in a press release, stated President Bola Tinubu deployed an extra 900 troops to the neighborhood.
In Niger State, a St. Mary’s Faculty in Papiri was additionally attacked on Friday, November 21, and 303 girls and boys, plus 12 academics, had been kidnapped; solely 50 are stated to have escaped as of Sunday, November 23. This quantity surpasses the variety of ladies kidnapped in Chibok, prompting a global “Convey Again Our Ladies” marketing campaign.
The identical day, militants launched one other lethal assault in Borno State. The record will not be exhaustive, underscoring how Nigeria’s overlapping insurgency and banditry crises are converging in devastating methods.
Insurgency a Risk to Meals Safety
The rise in rebel assaults is threatening regional stability and inflicting a spike in starvation, based on the the World Meals Programme (WFP)
The newest evaluation finds practically 35 million persons are projected to face extreme meals insecurity through the 2026 lean season from June to August—the very best quantity ever recorded within the nation.
Rebel assaults have intensified this yr, the UN company stated.
Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, reportedly carried out its first assault in Nigeria final month, whereas the rebel group Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) is outwardly searching for to increase throughout the Sahel area.
“Communities are underneath extreme stress from repeated assaults and financial stress,” stated David Stevenson, WFP Nation Director and Consultant in Nigeria.
“If we will’t preserve households fed and meals insecurity at bay, rising desperation may gas elevated instability with rebel teams exploiting starvation to increase their affect, making a safety risk that extends throughout West Africa and past.”
Human-rights activist Omoyele Sowore drew nationwide consideration to the lawlessness in a viral publish.
A Lengthy Shadow Over Colleges
Human-rights activist Omoyele Sowore drew nationwide consideration to the lawlessness in a viral publish.
These current incidents aren’t remoted—they’re a part of a deepening nationwide disaster that has focused colleges for greater than a decade. In accordance with Save the Kids, 1,683, schoolchildren have been kidnapped in Nigeria from April 2014 via December 2022. UNICEF equally stories that over 1,680 schoolchildren have been kidnapped inside that interval and based on a SBM report, 4,722 folks had been kidnapped and N2.57 billion (about USD 1.7 million) was paid to kidnappers as ransom between July 2024 and June 2025.
These statistics mirror each previous challenges and an everlasting failure—regardless of Nigeria’s endorsement of the Protected Colleges Declaration, the protections promised on paper haven’t reached lots of its most weak colleges.
Specialists and analysts say these incidents mirror a broader mannequin: prison gangs and insurgents are more and more seeing schoolchildren as high-value targets. This surge underscores a chilling fact: academic establishments, particularly in rural and poorly guarded areas, are not secure havens. They’re strategic targets.
“This has now grow to be a nationwide and worldwide dialogue, giving Nigeria a really unhealthy title,” stated Colonel Abdullahi Gwandu, a battle skilled, in an interview with IPS, criticizing the federal government’s failure to anticipate such assaults and the slack competency of safety forces, placing not solely schooling however each sphere of the nation in mayhem.
Trauma, Belief, and Retreat
Within the wake of the Kebbi abduction, concern rippled throughout communities. Unsure of their youngsters’s security, mother and father in Maga and close by areas rushed to withdraw their daughters from colleges. Neighborhood leaders responded with grief and prayer. Maga’s conventional ruler introduced a particular prayer gathering, calling on God to carry the ladies dwelling safely.
Habibat Muhammad, a youth advocate, stated it involved her that these traits put the schooling of women in danger.
“Whenever you practice a lady little one, you practice a nation however how do you practice a nation when ladies who needs to be sitting in school are dragged out of their hostels by individuals who have realized to take advantage of authorities negligence?”
She stated many rural ladies’ colleges lack primary safety infrastructure: educated guards, perimeter fencing, early-warning programs and correct lighting. She argued that this absence of safety contrasts sharply with the layered safety given to public officers or monetary establishments. “Training have to be handled as a nationwide precedence, not a mushy goal,” she advised IPS.
Why the State Can’t Appear to Cease Assaults
Safety consultants and neighborhood voices agree that the Kebbi assault uncovered main systemic flaws. Gwandu described the incident as a stark reminder of how fragile rural college safety has grow to be. He famous that the deliberate killing of a faculty safety officer alerts a shift in ways: attackers are actually focusing on authority figures along with college students. He careworn the necessity for a extra intelligence-driven technique and urged the army to take firmer motion. “
The Northwest Division, headquartered in Sokoto, needs to be given full authority and sources to reply rapidly and aggressively by combining human intelligence with AI to trace bandits and their informants whereas addressing poverty and poor schooling to scale back prison recruitment, Gwandu stated.
Past fast safety, he argues, the federal government should deal with root causes: poverty, lack of schooling, and widespread youth unemployment make banditry and kidnapping extra interesting for disenfranchised younger folks.
The Price Past the Kidnapping
Dr. Shadi Sabeh, an educationist and the vice-chairman of the Iconic College, argues that closing these wounds have to be central to Nigeria’s restoration technique.
“We’ve got to be there for our kids. Steering and counselling are virtually absent in our schooling system.” he requires trauma-informed curricula, peer help teams, bravery coaching, and sustained psychological well being companies inside colleges to assist college students cope, heal, and reclaim their futures. This highlights the necessity to preserve youth productive.
“A hungry man is an indignant man and an idle hand is a satan’s workshop.
Jeariogbe Islamiyyah Adedoyin, Vice President of the Faculty of Bodily Sciences, added a extra private plea.
“No little one ought to ever should undergo one thing like that simply to get an schooling. Our ladies should be taught with out concern. She stated when colleges are not secure, the way forward for the nation is in danger.”
What the Authorities Is Doing—And Why It’s Not Sufficient
In response to the disaster, authorities have initiated each fast and longer-term measures. Quick-term responses embrace deployment of troops to high-risk areas like Kebbi and Niger, search-and-rescue operations involving army, police, and native vigilantes, closure of some colleges deemed weak and public condemnation from spiritual and political leaders.
Nonetheless, excessive ranges of poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy, and lack of parental care make marginalized youth weak to recruitment by armed teams and defeat these efforts.
A authorized skilled, Waliu Olaitan Wahab, advised IPS that the roots of insecurity in northern Nigeria run far deeper than the actions of Boko Haram, herdsmen, or bandit gangs. He described the disaster as multifaceted, arguing that many years of neglect by northern elites have created a system the place hundreds of thousands of youngsters develop up with out help, alternative, or safety—making them simple targets for recruitment.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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