In a rare piece of positive news, 24 of the 25 schoolgirls abducted from their boarding school in Kebbi State over a week ago have been released, Nigeria’s president has announced. The girls were freed from the Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS) after armed assailants stormed the facility on 17 November, killing one staff member. One student managed to escape shortly after the kidnapping.
However, this successful release is overshadowed by a devastating escalation in mass abductions across the country. Just days after the Kebbi incident, more than 300 children and staff were kidnapped from St. Mary’s School, a Catholic boarding school in Niger State. While about 50 have reportedly escaped, at least 250 remain missing, prompting a leading Catholic cleric to accuse the government of making “no meaningful effort” in the rescue operation.
A National Epidemic of School Abductions
These incidents are part of a grim pattern that has plagued Africa’s most populous nation for a decade. Since the infamous Chibok mass abduction of 2014, over 1,500 children have been taken from Nigerian schools. The crisis has become so severe that President Bola Tinubu was forced to cancel his trip to the G20 summit to address the escalating situation.
A presidential adviser confirmed the Kebbi girls’ release and noted that the incident had triggered “copycat kidnappings” in two other states. In response, President Tinubu has pledged to deploy more personnel to vulnerable areas and ordered the Air Force to maintain “continuous surveillance over the most remote areas.”
The international community is watching with growing alarm. Gordon Brown, the UN education envoy and former UK prime minister, called for global support, stating, “It’s also incumbent on us to ensure that Nigerian schools are safe spaces for learning, not spaces where children can be plucked from their classroom for criminal profit.”
For now, 24 families can breathe a sigh of relief, but for the parents of hundreds of other missing children, the agonizing wait continues.
By James Kisoo
