Nigeria School Kidnappings Haunt Nation as Search for Hundreds Continues

Nigeria’s growing insecurity took a horrifying turn on Saturday as gunmen abducted over a dozen students and four women from a school in Gada, Sokoto state. This follows the mass kidnapping of nearly 300 students from a school in Kuriga, Kaduna state, just two days prior.

Sokoto lawmaker Bashir Usman Gorau told the BBC that at least 15 students were abducted early Saturday morning. The abductions come as the Nigerian army scrambles to locate the hundreds of students kidnapped in Kuriga on Thursday.

In a glimmer of hope, Kaduna state governor Uba Sani reported on Saturday that at least 28 of the Kuriga abductees had managed to escape. Thursday’s kidnapping, the largest mass school abduction in Nigeria since 2021, involved an estimated 280 students.

According to school officials and parents, the gunmen, large gangs riding motorcycles, targeted primary and secondary school children between the ages of eight and fifteen. Nigerian authorities have deployed troops alongside police and local search teams to scour the forests spanning Kaduna and neighboring states.

The kidnappings have cast a long shadow over the towns, with nearly every family fearing for a missing child. Tragically, one 14-year-old student who was shot by the kidnappers succumbed to his injuries while receiving hospital treatment.

These latest abductions follow a similar kidnapping of women and children from a remote Borno state town just a day earlier. Governor Sani blames the rise in kidnappings on a lack of manpower on the ground.

In response to the kidnappings, parents and relatives have formed vigilante groups and reached out to neighboring communities to try and locate the missing children. Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima is scheduled to meet with Governor Sani in Kaduna.

President Bola Tinubu, expressing confidence in the eventual rescue of the victims, took to social media, tweeting: “Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members of these abducted citizens. Justice will be decisively administered.”

Security forces are also conducting searches in Katsina and Zamfara states.

This surge in school kidnappings has evoked painful memories of the Chibok abduction in 2014, where nearly 300 girls were kidnapped from a school in northeastern Nigeria. In many parts of northern Nigeria, fear for their children’s safety is leading parents to keep them home from school.

Kidnappings for ransom by armed groups have become a terrible norm in northern Nigeria, forcing thousands of children out of school. In July 2021, Kaduna state witnessed a similar mass abduction of over 150 students, who were eventually released after ransom payments were made by their families.

Nigeria passed a law in 2022 that outlawed ransom payments to kidnappers, imposing a 15-year jail sentence for those who do. The law also prescribes the death penalty for kidnappings resulting in the victim’s death.

Mimi Mefo Info