Over 300 students and teachers abducted as schools shut nationwide – Firstpost

Gunmen have abducted more than 300 students and teachers in one of Nigeria’s biggest mass kidnappings, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said on Saturday, deepening security concerns in Africa’s most populous country.

The attack occurred early Friday at St. Mary’s Co-Educational School in Niger state, days after armed men attacked a secondary school in neighboring Kebbi state and abducted 25 girls.

CAN initially reported 227 people were taken, but revised the figure after a verification exercise, saying 303 students and 12 teachers were now missing. The number of abducted boys and girls is almost half of the total student body of 629 at St. Mary’s.

The Nigerian government has not released its own numbers. Niger state Governor Mohammed Omar Bago told reporters on Saturday that police and intelligence agencies were still counting the dead.

Bago, which had already ordered the closure of some schools, has now closed all schools across the state. Neighboring states have taken similar steps by closing institutions as a precaution. The Ministry of National Education has also ordered the closure of 47 boarding secondary schools across the country.

President Bola Tinubu has canceled planned international events, including attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to focus on managing the crisis.

Two kidnapping campaigns and an attack on a church in the west of the country, which left two dead and dozens abducted, come after US President Donald Trump threatened military action over the killing of Christians in Nigeria by radical Islamists.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called on Abuja to “take immediate and lasting action to stop violence against Christians” during talks this week with Nigerian national security adviser Nuhu Ribadu, the Pentagon said.

Nigeria is still haunted by the abduction of about 300 girls by Boko Haram jihadists in Chibok, in northeastern Borno state, more than a decade ago. Some of those girls are still missing.

On Saturday, nurse Stella Shaibu, 40, collected her daughter from a government school in Bwari, an hour’s drive from Abuja, after schools were directed to close.

Questioning how it could not be safe even on the outskirts of the capital, he concluded that “the government is doing nothing” to prevent insecurity.

“How can 300 students be taken away at the same time? How can children be kidnapped within three-four days?”

“If the US government can do something to save this situation, I’m completely in support,” he told AFP.

Myriad Security Challenges

Cain 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 called and checked on those who we thought had successfully escaped, but it turned out that 88 other students had also been captured after trying to escape,” he said.

“There are now 303 students (male and female) including 12 teachers (4 females and 8 males), taking the total number of abducted persons to 315,” he said in a statement.

For years, heavily armed criminal gangs have been stepping up attacks in rural areas of north-west and central Nigeria, where the state has little presence, killing thousands of people and kidnapping them for ransom.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but ransom-demanding bandit gangs often target schools in rural areas where security is weak.

The gang has camps in vast forests spread across 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 worshipers are believed to have been abducted.

As Nigeria grapples with security challenges on multiple fronts, hostage-taking has increased across the country and has become a favorite tactic of bandit gangs and jihadists.

Although the bandits have no ideological leanings and are motivated by financial gain, their growing alliance with jihadists from the northeast has been a matter of concern for officials and security analysts.

Jihadis have been waging an insurgency in the northeast for 16 years with the aim of establishing a caliphate.

with inputs from agencies