 "Mass kidnapping in Nigeria: Over 300 students and teachers abducted as schools shut nationwide")
Gunmen have kidnapped more than 300 students and teachers in one of Nigeria’s biggest mass abductions, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said on Saturday, deepening security concerns in Africa’s most populous country.
The attack took place early Friday at St Mary’s co-education school in Niger state, days after armed men stormed a secondary school in neighbouring Kebbi state and abducted 25 girls.
CAN initially reported 227 people taken but revised the figure after a verification exercise, stating that 303 students and 12 teachers were now confirmed missing. The number of abducted boys and girls represents nearly half of St Mary’s total student body of 629.
The Nigerian government has not released its own tally. Niger state governor Mohammed Umar Bago told reporters on Saturday that police and intelligence agencies were still conducting a head count.
Bago, who had already ordered some schools to close, has now shut all schools across the state. Neighbouring states have taken similar measures, shutting institutions as a precaution. The national education ministry has also ordered 47 boarding secondary schools across the country to close.
President Bola Tinubu has cancelled planned international engagements, including attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to focus on managing the crisis.
The two abduction operations and an attack on a church in the west of the country, in which two people were killed and dozens abducted, have happened since US President Donald Trump threatened military action over what he called the killing of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.
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View AllUS Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week called on Abuja to “take both urgent and enduring action to stop violence against Christians”, during talks with Nigerian National Security Advisor Nuhu Ribadu, the Pentagon said.
Nigeria is still scarred by the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls by Boko Haram jihadists at Chibok in northeastern Borno state more than a decade ago. Some of those girls are still missing.
On Saturday Stella Shaibu, a 40-year-old nurse, collected her daughter from a government school in Bwari, an hour drive from Abuja following the directive to shut schools.
Questioning how it cannot even be safe on the outskirts of the capital, she concludes “government is not doing anything” to curb insecurity.
“How can 300 students be taken away at the same time? How can, within three-four days, children have been abducted?”
“If there is something that the American government can do to salvage this situation, I’m totally in support,” she told AFP.
Myriad security challenges
CAN said Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, who is also the Catholic Bishop of Kontagora diocese under which the school falls, gave the update after visiting St Mary’s.
The diocese made calls checking “on those we had thought escaped successfully, only to discover that 88 more students were also captured after they tried to escape,” he said.
“This now makes it 303 students (male and female) including 12 teachers (4 females and 8 males) bringing the total number of abducted persons to 315,” he said in a statement.
For years, heavily armed criminal gangs have been intensifying attacks in rural areas of northwest and central Nigeria, where there is little state presence, killing thousands and conducting kidnappings for ransom.
No group has claimed the latest attacks but bandit gangs seeking ransom payments often target schools in rural areas where security is weak.
The gangs have camps in a vast forest straddling several states including Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Niger.
In a separate attack on a church in western Nigeria on Tuesday, gunmen killed two people during a service that was being broadcast online. Dozens of worshippers are believed to have been abducted.
As Nigeria grapples with security challenges on several fronts, hostage-taking has spiralled nationwide and become a favoured tactic of bandit gangs and jihadists.
Although bandits have no ideological leanings and are motivated by financial gain, their increasing alliance with jihadists from the northeast has been a source of concern for authorities and security analysts.
Jihadists have for 16 years been waging an insurrection in the northeast with the aim of establishing a Caliphate.
With inputs from agencies
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