🔗 Share this article

Gunmen have kidnapped in excess of 300 schoolchildren and staff in one of the biggest group abductions in recent Nigerian history, according to a religious organization on the weekend.

Growing Crisis in School Institutions

The Friday morning attack on St Mary's co-educational school in Niger state occurred just days after armed men stormed a high school in adjacent Kebbi state, abducting 25 female students.

Earlier reports had indicated 227 victims were taken, but updated figures emerged after a comprehensive verification exercise established that 303 pupils and 12 teachers had been kidnapped.

The abducted students, ranging between eight and 18 years, constitute nearly 50 percent of the school's total student population of 629.

Official Reaction and Safety Actions

Local authorities have confirmed that security agencies and police are currently performing a comprehensive head count to verify the precise number of abducted individuals.

In response to the growing safety fears, the state government has mandated the closure of all schools in the state, with neighboring states adopting comparable precautionary actions.

Additionally, the national education department has directed the provisional closure of 47 boarding secondary schools across the country.

President Bola Tinubu has postponed international engagements, including participation at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to focus on managing the situation.

Latest Security Events

The educational institution kidnappings constitute the most recent in a series of safety breaches that have rocked the country, including an assault on a church in western Nigeria where assailants killed two people and seized numerous worshipers during a online broadcast service.

These incidents have taken place against the background of international attention on Nigeria's safety situation.

Past Context

Nigeria remains scarred by the memory of the mass abduction of almost 300 female students by extremist group Boko Haram in Chibok more than a decade ago, with some of those girls still missing.

Firsthand Accounts

In a disturbing video clip circulated by Christian groups, a distraught employee recounted hearing the noise of bikes and cars before experiencing "violent banging" on various entrances of the compound.

"Students were screaming," the witness reported, recounting her panic while looking for keys to the area where the screaming was most intense.

The local Catholic diocese stated that the "attackers operated aggressively and without interruption for almost three hours, moving through sleeping quarters."

Citizen Response and Concerns

Meanwhile, about 600km away on the outskirts of Abuja, concerned parents were collecting their children from educational institutions following the closure directive.

One mother, a 40-year-old nurse, expressed her shock at the magnitude of the kidnapping, asking how 300 children could be taken at once.

She concluded that the "authorities is not doing enough to address the security crisis," and expressed support for external intervention to "resolve this situation."

Ongoing Security Issues

For a long time, heavily armed criminal gangs have been conducting murders and kidnappings for ransom in remote areas of northern and central Nigeria, where state presence is limited.

While nobody has claimed responsibility for the recent attacks, criminal groups demanding financial compensation often target schools in countryside locations where protection is inadequate.

These groups maintain camps in vast forest areas spanning several states in western Nigeria.

While these bandits have no ideological leanings and are mainly motivated by financial gain, their increasing cooperation with extremist groups from the northeastern region has become a significant cause of concern for officials and security analysts alike.