Daily Trust Editorial, Monday November 24, 2025
Nigeria is once again drowning in horror. A staggering 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were abducted on Friday, November 21, 2025, when gunmen stormed St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) confirmed the figures after a verification exercise, revising its earlier tally of 215. The chairman of CAN in Niger State, Most Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, personally visited the school and issued the update.
This atrocity comes barely days after armed men invaded a secondary school in Maga, Kebbi State, on Monday, November 17, abducting 25 schoolgirls without resistance.
The growing tally of stolen Nigerian children is becoming a sickening national shame.
The shock was so severe that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu abruptly cancelled his planned trip to the G20 summit in South Africa, delegating Vice President Kashim Shettima to attend on his behalf. The mood across the country remains one of grief and fear, with schools shut down in Plateau, Taraba, Niger, Kebbi, Yobe and other states, in addition to the 41 federal Unity Schools closed at the weekend.
Clearly, this is an admission that the Nigerian state can no longer guarantee even the barest safety for its young.
These attacks reached a crescendo shortly after United States President Donald Trump threatened military action over what he called genocide of Christians in Nigeria, a claim strongly dismissed by the Nigerian government, Muslim organisations and people of goodwill who know the truth.
For now, the North is in dire straits and millions of human beings in the region, irrespective of religion or ethnic affiliation, are suffering the brunt, as evident in the abduction of Muslim daughters in Kebbi and Christian children in Niger.
Terrorists and bandits, or whatever we call them, are simply criminals and citizens must coalesce into a single force and decimate the common enemy for all of us to be alive. This is no time for a blame game because those against the citizens are no longer hibernating, they are cashing on our vulnerabilities.
In Niger State, the government shifted the blame by accusing St. Mary’s School of ignoring an order to close all boarding schools after intelligence suggested rising threats in the area. The statement, signed by Secretary to the State Government, Abubakar Usman, was swiftly rejected by CAN chairman, Most Rev. Yohanna, who described it as “mere propaganda” and pure afterthought.
In Kebbi State, Governor Nasir Idris revealed that military personnel deployed to secure GGCSS Maga were inexplicably withdrawn at 3 a.m. on the day of the attack, just 45 minutes before bandits struck. According to him, intelligence on a likely assault had been shared, a security meeting was convened, assurances were given, deployment was made and suddenly withdrawn.
Who signed off on this? Who should Nigerians hold responsible for this monumental dereliction? It is good news that so far, 50 of the children stolen from the school in Niger have returned as announced by the authorities. There is nothing from Kebbi so far.
These tragedies are not new. Since the abduction of 276 girls in Chibok on April 14, 2014, Nigeria has learned absolutely nothing. No one has been punished. No systems strengthened. No accountability enforced.
Before the Chibok absurdity, 59 schoolchildren were slaughtered in Buni Yadi, Yobe State, with their school burned to the ground.
From Dapchi in 2018, where Leah Sharibu still remains in captivity, to Kankara in 2020; Kagara and Jangebe in 2021; Kaduna, Birnin Gwari, Greenfield University, Tegina, Yauri, and several others between 2021 and 2023—the list of atrocities is endless. Federal University Gusau, Federal University Dutsin-Ma, and more recent tragedies, show that terrorists are not just persistent, they are emboldened.
On March 7, 2024, about 287 students and staff were abducted in Kuriga, Kaduna State, one of the largest school kidnappings in years. A day later, children were seized from a Tsangaya school in Sokoto. In Ekiti, six pupils, three teachers, and a bus driver were taken in yet another brazen assault.
The ease with which terrorists invade schools and march children into the wilderness is an indictment of Nigeria’s collapsing security architecture. It exposes the hollowness of official rhetoric and the absence of any coherent protection strategy.
Where is the Safe Schools Initiative? What happened to the much-advertised collaboration with the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC)? Millions of dollars were raised internationally. Millions more were donated at home. And yet, schools remain defenceless. Where is the money? Who looted it? Why do schoolchildren continue to pay with their lives for the greed and incompetence of those in power?
State governments must stop issuing empty statements and take responsibility for securing schools. Beyond that, governments at all levels must act decisively to prove Donald Trump wrong. For now, bandits and terrorists are exploiting his controversial claims, hoping to fuel religious division and chaos. Propaganda is their oxygen, and our leaders’ silence and incompetence nourish it.
The time for talking is over. President Tinubu must urgently recruit and properly equip thousands of security personnel including the military, police, civil defence, and immigration personnel. The president should give a standing directive for the withdrawal of police escorts from those who are not entitled to them; and overhaul the security architecture without bureaucratic hesitation. The age of cosmetic reforms and meaningless “stakeholder engagements” must end.
Local governments that are the closest to rural communities should be empowered to design and enforce special security frameworks as the first line of defence.
Most importantly, all abducted children along with the hundreds of villagers kidnapped daily but forgotten must be rescued without delay. Nigeria cannot continue counting its children like livestock stolen from weakly guarded pens.
With modern surveillance technology easily available, it is an unforgivable disgrace that Nigeria cannot track or neutralise criminal gangs who operate openly and demand ransoms with confidence.
Beyond the sad stories of abduction of students which must be tamed, it is gratifying that the 38 persons who were recently abducted during an attack on Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku, Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara state have been rescued. But the irony is that 13 women have been abducted in Borno State about the same time! We cannot continue like this.
The Constitution of Nigeria is unambiguous. Section 14(2)(b) declares: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of the government.”
Right now, that promise stands broken. And the nation is bleeding.
