President Muhammadu Buhari claimed that the persistent attacks on schools have traumatized children in Nigeria. Millions of them, especially girls, are scarred by the mass kidnappings taking place in the northwest and center of the country.
An observation but no strategy
The declaration of the President of Nigeria is akin to an acknowledgment of failure. At an international conference in Abuja on safe schools, the country’s leader deplores the “trauma” of children and the fear of more than 12 million of them of going to school. The former general in power since 2015 recognizes that it is difficult to manage these security challenges and their consequences, but nevertheless promises to end the attacks on schools without saying, when, or how.
“It is no longer news to say that bandits, kidnappers and terrorists are invading our schools to kidnap learners in large numbers”
Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria
Kidnappings and ransoms
Schools are a target in northern and central Nigeria. Boarding schools, colleges and high schools are regularly attacked by armed men who kidnap pupils and students of all ages and demand ransoms in exchange for their release. Teachers are not spared by this phenomenon, as the Nigerian daily highlights The Guardian.
Since December 2020, more than 1,400 young people have been victims of mass kidnapping according to Unicef and dozens of them are still in the hands of the kidnappers. This practice began in 2014 with the kidnapping of more than 200 teenage girls in Chibok by the Islamist group Boko Haram, sparking a worldwide stir with the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Since then, mass kidnappings have multiplied with impunity. .
A million children deprived of school
The perpetrators of kidnappings are not fully identified. The Nigerian authorities speak of “bandits”. Criminal gangs that have proliferated in recent years in the north-west of the country in a context of growing insecurity, as explained by the International Crises group (ICG). The Nigerian army, which launched a new offensive in northwestern Nigeria last September, seems incapable of curbing crime and stopping kidnappings. This practice, which has become a scourge, is a serious threat to education, as Unicef points out.
Due to lack of protection, several schools or boarding schools had to close their doors in the North. With the new school year starting in mid-September, more than 37 million children were expected to return to school in the country. But in this context, many are missing in the north and a million of them are at high risk of being deprived of education.