Kebbi’s Daughters Taken Again: Another Morning of Fear in Northwestern Nigeria

When gunmen can storm a girls’ school before dawn, kill an educator, and haul teenagers into the forest without immediate consequence, something fundamental has broken in Nigeria’s security contract with its citizens.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front):

Terrorists attacked a girls’ secondary school in Kebbi State before dawn Monday, killing one staff member and abducting an estimated two dozen students. Locals say the kidnappers are still nearby and are calling for immediate rescue efforts. Security forces have not yet issued a statement.

There are mornings when the news out of Nigeria recedes into background noise – another firefight, another village hit, another government promise that things are “under control.”

And then there are mornings like this, when the reports make you stop cold.

Just before dawn on Monday, terrorists stormed the Maga Comprehensive Girls’ Secondary School in the Danko Wasagu area of Kebbi State. The girls – believed to be between 12 and 18 years old – were starting their morning routines when gunfire tore through the school grounds. The deputy principal was killed trying to protect them. A school guard was wounded. Then the gunmen went room to room, dragging girls from their dormitories and disappearing into the treeline.

Boko Haram bandits. Image Credit: Getty Images

Residents estimate roughly two dozen students were abducted. They say the attackers “haven’t gone far.” Those are the words of people watching their worst fear play out in real time. They’re not offering analysis – they’re pleading for intervention before those girls vanish into the forests of Kebbi and Zamfara, where hostages are too often swallowed for good.

As of this writing, security forces have released no official statement.

Kebbi has been here before. Northern Nigeria has been here far too many times. In June 2021, armed men stormed the Federal Government College in Birnin Yauri, killing a police officer and abducting at least 80 students and five teachers. Many of those children were held for months. Some never came home at all.

And the violence isn’t isolated. Just hours before this latest school attack, terrorists raided Rogun Village in Kwara State, overrunning a small police outpost in a gun battle that left a constabulary officer and a local vigilante dead.

Call them bandits, insurgents, militants – it doesn’t matter. What matters is that they move with increasing confidence and decreasing fear of consequences. And schools, especially girls’ schools, remain among the most vulnerable soft targets in the north.

Here’s the part that should bother all of us: the people on the ground say the kidnappers are still within reach. That means the clock hasn’t run out. Even here in the US, we understand that it’s those first crucial hours after an abduction that call for swift action.

Two ways to continue to read this article.

And if there is none… these girls will become one more news report the world remembers for a day, and Nigeria is forced to live with forever. There has to be a point where the response becomes stronger than the threat. A point where armed groups learn that taking schoolchildren comes with a cost they cannot afford. These girls deserve more than sympathy. They deserve a country that refuses to let this become just another headline. This is a developing story. But it’s also a line in the sand, or at least it should be.