KEBBI STATE, Nigeria – In a rare piece of positive news amidst a escalating national security crisis, a group of 24 Nigerian schoolgirls abducted from their boarding school over a week ago have been released, President Bola Tinubu announced on Sunday.
The students from the Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS) in Kebbi State were seized by armed assailants on November 17. The attack, which saw gunmen storm the school, resulted in the death of one staff member and the abduction of 25 students. One student managed to escape shortly after the incident, leaving 24 in captivity until their release this weekend.
In a statement, a special adviser to the president confirmed that all the girls taken from the school had been “accounted for.” The statement also revealed that the high-profile incident had triggered “copycat kidnappings” in two other Nigerian states, highlighting the rapidly spreading nature of the crisis.
President Tinubu praised the country’s security forces for their “swift response” in securing the girls’ freedom, though the precise circumstances of their release—including whether a ransom was paid or a rescue operation was conducted—remained unclear.
A Deepening National Emergency
The release of the Kebbi students stands in stark contrast to the fates of hundreds of other children abducted in a spate of recent attacks, painting a picture of a government struggling to contain a rampant kidnapping epidemic.
Just days after the Kebbi abduction, on Friday, November 22, at least 300 children and staff were abducted from St Mary’s School, a Catholic boarding school in neighbouring Niger State. While the Christian Association of Nigeria has reported that around 50 of those abducted have since escaped, the whereabouts of at least 250 remain unknown.
The main Catholic cleric in the region expressed deep frustration to the BBC, accusing the Nigerian government of making “no meaningful effort” to rescue those still missing from St. Mary’s.
This wave of violence has forced President Tinubu to cancel his trip to the G20 summit in South Africa to deal with the domestic emergency. The situation has grown so dire that it evokes memories of the infamous 2014 Chibok mass abduction, where 276 girls were taken by Islamist militants Boko Haram. Since that incident, more than 1,500 children have been abducted from Nigerian schools, according to tallies.
Government Pledges and International Concern
Facing mounting pressure, President Tinubu has pledged to deploy more security personnel to “vulnerable areas to avert further incidents of kidnapping.”
In a separate post on the social media platform X, he outlined a more robust military strategy, stating, “The Air Force is to maintain continuous surveillance over the most remote areas, synchronising operations with ground units to effectively identify, isolate, disrupt, and neutralise all hostile elements.”
The international community has begun to take note. Gordon Brown, the UN’s Special Envoy for Global Education and a former UK Prime Minister, called on the world to “do our utmost” to support efforts to return the abducted children.
“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,” Brown said.
While the nation breathes a sigh of relief for the 24 girls returned to their families in Kebbi, the celebration is tempered by the anguish of the hundreds still missing and the grim reality that without a decisive solution, Nigeria’s schools will remain targets for armed groups seeking profit and leverage.
