The mass abduction of over 300 students, including staff, from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School (GGCSS) in Maga, Kebbi State, and St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger State — within a week — is one failure too many for Nigeria’s authorities. It indicates that all is not well, and more so, that the nation is becoming destabilised by incompetence, sabotaged from within, and governed by leaders who appear more interested in political optics than in producing results.
How can a country regarded as a continental powerhouse — one with numerous security agencies and defence budgets running into trillions of naira — allow its future leaders to be repeatedly taken by criminals?
In March 2024, over 200 students were abducted from the LEA Primary and Secondary School in Kuriga, Kaduna State. Six children reportedly died in 2021 after gunmen stormed the Salihu Tanko Islamiyya School in Tegina, Niger State and kidnapped 135 pupils. In February 2021, armed men attacked the Government Girls Science Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State, in a nighttime raid and fled with 279 students. Again, 300 boys were abducted from the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State, in December 2020. Earlier incidents include the April 2014 kidnapping of over 200 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, and the 2018 abduction of 110 students from Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State.
While Nigerian parents wept and communities trembled with fear, the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Olufemi Oluyede, and the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, were away in Dubai. Meanwhile, Minister of State for Defence Bello Mohammed Matawalle took up the insensitive task of struggling to justify why three top players in Nigeria’s security circle should be out of the country at the time terrorists executed a Brigadier General, dozens of students were kidnapped, and worshippers and farmers in Kwara State were abducted.
The history of security emergencies, especially abductions in Nigeria, is made even more distressing by the lacklustre response that often follows. Aides to government officials issue belated statements, followed by equally overdue visits, suggesting that protecting life and property is the least priority in Nigerian government circles. The bloody acts are condemned. Promises are made. Thereafter, the criminals return, emboldened by the state’s implied inability to protect the citizenry. This familiar cycle played out yet again, as the Kebbi and Niger abductions occurred despite previous assurances that security had been reinforced.
Where were the security forces when the students and staff were marched away from their schools? How did armed groups move through communities, execute their operations, and escape without encountering meaningful resistance? Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris has asked the Ministry of Defence to explain why, barely an hour before the attack, military personnel at GGCSS suddenly withdrew. “We need to know why they left. We had intelligence, we provided security, so what happened?” the governor lamented. Fingers point to unsettling possibilities. There have been credible indications of sabotage within the army itself: a fifth column that either actively aids these criminal enterprises or deliberately undermines efforts to combat them. How else should the seeming ease with which bandits operate in areas supposedly under military surveillance be explained? How do large groups of armed men move weapons, hostages, and supplies across territories without detection? Sadly, the government appears unwilling — or perhaps intimidated — to undertake the sweeping reform needed to cleanse the security apparatus of this ailment.
The country must also abandon the notion held in some quarters that worsening insecurity simply means more money is needed. Figures on Nigeria’s military spending between 2020 and 2023 showed an estimated N19.388 trillion. The total defence and security sector budget in 2025 was put at N4.91 trillion. N595b was specifically allocated to the intelligence sub-sector. Until there is an indisputable change, records show that Nigeria’s insecurity crisis does not cower before the billions of naira thrown at it yearly. It stands to be said that what the situation requires is renewed patriotism and a stronger commitment to the nation’s collective survival.
As the embarrassing attacks continue, Nigeria increasingly presents itself to the world as an unserious nation. A state that cannot guarantee the safety of schoolchildren has forfeited its most fundamental responsibility. If the current government cannot take appropriate and decisive action to end the nightmare, the honourable path is to step aside and hand the reins of office to those who have the competence and courage to do so. Governance is not a birthright; it is a solemn responsibility. Any government loses its legitimacy when it repeatedly demonstrates its inability to fulfil the primary duty of protecting its citizens.
Nigeria today faces military emergencies that require the mobilisation of all available resources and personnel. This should include not just serving officers but retired military men who still possess the experience, expertise, and commitment to contribute to national security. It is illogical and wasteful that the government continues to retire military personnel who have decades of institutional knowledge and operational experience while the nation burns.
The controversial Operation Safe Corridor must also be stopped immediately. While rehabilitating repentant insurgents might sound progressive in policy documents, it is obscene in practice when viewed against the backdrop of ongoing violence. How can the state justify “rehabilitating” captured terrorists while their former comrades continue to kill soldiers and abduct citizens? How does it explain to grieving families that their loved ones’ killers may receive amnesty while they receive only condolences? The initiative sends a troubling signal that crime pays, and that the Nigerian state values its enemies more than its citizens.
It is time for Nigeria to carry out a total overhaul of its security architecture. The President must demonstrate, through actions, that ending insecurity is one of his administration’s foremost concerns. This means being on the ground in affected communities, not hiding behind Aso Rock statements. It means holding the security chiefs accountable for failures. Nigerians did not elect leaders to watch helplessly as their children are stolen from schools and their communities terrorised by bandits. The military must undergo rigorous vetting to identify and eliminate saboteurs within its ranks. A compromised military is worse than no military at all because it provides false security while enabling the enemy. Those found guilty of aiding bandits and terrorists must face the full weight of the law.
Authorities must abandon reactive approaches to insecurity. This will mean making credible investments in intelligence capabilities that pinpoint threats ever before they materialise, hardening soft targets like schools and communities, and cutting off the financial and logistical networks that sustain criminal groups. It also means working with communities to build trust and gather intelligence rather than treating them as collateral damage in airstrikes.
The ultimate solution is more political than it is military. The leadership must understand that its legitimacy stems not from its capacity to win elections but from its ability to protect citizens. Will Tinubu’s administration finally rise to meet the moment, or will it continue to steer a nation’s descent into chaos? Time, patience, and lives are running out.
