Why hundreds of school children in northern Nigeria are being abducted

For several years now, Nigeria has been grappling with the issue of kidnapping.

This week, more than 280 grade school students were kidnapped in Kuriga, Nigeria’s northwest region.

These raids are only the most recent in a long line of similar ones that have taken place since the Islamic militant group Boko Haram abducted the Chibok schoolgirls ten years ago.

Let’s take a closer look at the crisis in Africa’s most populous nation.

The kidnappings in northern Nigeria

About 287 pupils were in the assembly ground around 8.30 local time when dozens of gunmen on motorcyles rode through the school, BBC quoted a witness as saying.

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The students, who are aged between eight and 15, were taken away, along with their teacher. The mass abduction was confirmed by the governor of Kaduna state, Uba Sani.

He said 187 students had gone missing from a secondary school and 125 from the local primary school but that 25 had since returned.

Notably, the impoverished and educationally backward north Nigerian region has been worst hit by a wave of crime and insecurity.

Large numbers of armed gangs, called bandits, have taken control of swaths of territory, invading schools and communities to conduct mass killings and abductions, according to The Associated Press. Around 1,500 students have been kidnapped in raids since 2014.

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The Nigeria-based SBM Intelligence group claims that between July 2022 and June 2023, over 3,600 people were kidnapped. However, as many people are afraid of facing consequences, the real number may be far higher.

While some of the Chibok school victims were believed to have been forced into marriage with militants, most of the kidnappings since then have been for ransom.

Some of the raids have targeted colleges, such as a 2021 attack on Greenfield University in Kaduna State in which at least five students were killed when parents failed to meet ransom demands. But most victims have been schools for younger students.

The government claims progress against Boko Haram and its splinter Islamic State in West African Province, but the groups remain active and have established bases, including in Niger State near Abuja, outside of their original north-eastern birthplace.

The bandits who are conducting mass kidnappings

There has been no claim of responsibility in the latest attack, but it happened in an area where bandits are active and have attacked communities in the past.

The majority of the bandits are members of the Fulani nomadic community, who first turned to violence to gain access to land and water resources in Zamfara State from the ethnic Hausa populations. However, they have since evolved into well-organised, armed groups that specialise in kidnapping people for ransom and occupying farms and gold mines against will.

There are believed to be hundreds of gangs, each with scores of armed fighters.

Bandits also attack communities to force adults into labour on seized farmlands and mining sites.

The Nigerian military hasn’t done anything to disband the gangs since they are worn out after fighting never-ending internal wars for almost a decade.

Because the gangs control areas of Nigeria where a large portion of the nation’s food is produced domestically, they pose a threat to the food security of the nation.

The reason

The abductions generally are aimed at obtaining ransom and have become a lucrative business, according to Shehu Sani, a former federal lawmaker from Kaduna, where the attack occurred on Thursday.

Schoolchildren are targeted because the bandits “know that it will evoke public sympathy for the pupils, and pressure will be mounted on the government to bow to their demands,” Sani said in a post on X.

The government does not admit it, but sources close to the negotiations say ransom payments are made by both families and state governments, Sani said.

The proceeds from stolen farms and mines, along with other criminal incomes like ransom payments, have enabled the gangs to accumulate an arsenal of weapons capable of taking down military planes.

Nnamdi Obasi, an advisor at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said the willingness of desperate families, embattled communities and even the state governments to pay ransoms has “turned mass kidnapping into arguably the most lucrative criminal enterprise in the northwest zone.”

The proceeds from stolen farms and mines, along with other criminal incomes like ransom payments, have enabled the gangs to accumulate an arsenal of weapons capable of taking down military planes.

The government’s response

While some state governments, like those in Zamfara and Katsina, have tried milder tactics, such negotiations and amnesty accords with the bandits, the federal government has officially taken the position of armed retaliation.

President Bola Tinubu said he was “confident that the victims will be rescued.”

Obasi said the failure of state and federal governments to apprehend kidnappers has added to a “climate of impunity” that “only enables more heinous atrocities.”

Over the years, there have been a few gang leader killings, one of which occurred recently in Kaduna, but the issue has not really been addressed. It’s been challenging to entice gang members to give up the lucrative abduction trade.

Any threats to education?

The states in northern Nigeria already have the country’s lowest rates of literacy and high rates of children staying out of school.

The spate of abductions in recent years could affect the efforts of the government and development partners to encourage parents to send their children to school.

“Many parents in rural areas are now afraid of allowing their children to go to school,” Sani said. “This is a serious problem for basic education in Northern Nigeria.”

With inputs from The Associated Press