November 24, (THEWILL) — The terrorist attacks on schools in Kebbi and Niger States, in which a total of 328 pupils were abducted, dominated newspaper headlines this past week and ignited reactions from far and wide. Even Pope Leo XIV called, all the way from Vatican City, for the immediate release of the school children and kidnapped worshippers at the CAC church in Kwara State.
Since the infamous Chibok schoolgirls incident in 2014, there has been a recurrent pattern of targeted attacks by bandits and terrorists on vulnerable school children. The first of such incidents took place in December 2020 when gunmen attacked the Government Boys’ Science Secondary School in Kankara, Kaduna State and abducted more than 300 pupils.
Similar incidents occurred at the Federal Government College in Birnin Yauri, Kebbi State; Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara State; Nuhu Bamali Polytechnic in Zaria, Kaduna State; Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Kaduna State; and the Greenfield University, among others. According to reports, so far, over 2,000 school children were kidnapped between 2014 and 2025. More than 180 of those children were killed by their abductors.
Terrorism has had a crippling effect on education in Nigeria, no doubt and it is a serious threat to the future of education in the country, certainly not one to be ignored for too long. The attacks on schools are a violation of children’s rights to education, life and liberty. Apart from sowing fear in the hearts of school children, persistent attacks could scare parents into withdrawing them from school, a situation that will result in low enrolment in schools, which in turn has severe implications for human capacity development.
Nigerians have not forgotten the story of Leah Sharibu, the 14-year-old pupil of Government Girls Science and Technical School, Dapchi in Yobe State who was abducted on February 19, 2018 alongside 109 others by the Islamic State West African Province. The terrorists killed five of the kidnapped girls, returned 104 to their parents and kept Leah because she refused to convert to Islam. Sadly she is still in captivity till date.
Needless to say, the Federal Government must do something about these relentless attacks on vulnerable school children before it becomes too late.
