Nigeria Security agencies have intensified a coordinated search-and-rescue operation after 25 schoolgirls were abducted during an early-morning attack on Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State.
According to police reports, armed men on motorcycles stormed the school around 4 a.m. on Monday, exchanged gunfire with security personnel, breached the perimeter fence, and carried out the abduction. The assailants killed the school’s vice principal during the attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility.
Kebbi State Governor Nasir Idris visited the school shortly after the incident, assuring families that both state and federal forces were fully mobilized. Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Waidi Shaibu, also met with troops in Kebbi and ordered what he described as “intelligence-driven operations and a relentless day-and-night pursuit of the abductors.”
“We must find these children. Act decisively and professionally on all intelligence,” Shaibu told soldiers on Tuesday. “Success is not optional.”
Security teams have since swept nearby forests, while additional checkpoints and patrols have been deployed along major routes connected to the area.
Recall of Past Incidents
The attack marks the second major school abduction in Kebbi in four years, following the June 2021 kidnapping of more than 100 students and staff from a government college.
It also adds to Nigeria’s troubling history of mass student abductions. Since the April 14, 2014 kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok by Boko Haraman event that drew global outragemore than 1,500 students have been abducted across the country.
Earlier this year, in March 2024, more than 130 schoolchildren kidnapped in Kaduna State were rescued after spending over two weeks in captivity.
As the operation continues, authorities say they will maintain pressure until the abducted students are safely returned. Families and community members in Maga remain on edge as the country confronts yet another reminder of the persistent insecurity threatening schools in northern Nigeria.
If you need a shorter bulletin-style version for broadcast or social media, I can shape it quickly.
