Sopuruchi Onwuka

The government’s announcement shutting down 41 unity colleges in the country following regular, smooth invasion and abduction of innocent kids in boarding houses signals loss of hope in the fight against banditry and Islamist insurgency in the country.

The decision goes beyond security strategy failure to announce a surrender, telling parents and Nigerians that the government cannot defend schoolchildren from roaming bandits but can trade the future of tens of thousands of young Nigerians when political calculations take priority.

The Director in charge of Senior Secondary Education at the Federal Ministry of Education, Hajiya Binta Abdulkadir, had on Friday ordered the closure of 41 unity colleges with immediate effect. She directed the principals of the affected schools which are located in the Northwest, Northeast and North Central geopolitical zones of the country to shut down immediately.

The affected schools include FGGC Minjibir, FTC Ganduje, FGGC Zaria, FTC Kafanchan, FTC Dayi, FGC Daura, FGGC Tambuwal, FSC Sokoto, FTC Wurno, FGC Gusau, FGC Anka, FGGC Gwandu, and FGC Birnin Yauri.

Also included are FTC Zuru, FGGC Kazaure, FGC Kiyawa, FTC Hadejia, FGGC Bida, FGC New-Bussa, FTC Kuta-Shiroro, FGA Suleja, FGC Ilorin, FGGC Omuaran, FTC Gwanara, FGGC Bakori, FGC Ugwolawo, FGGC Kabba, FTC Ogugu, FGGC Bwari, FGC Rubochi, FGGC Abaji, and FGGC Potiskum.

The list also contains FGC Buni Yadi, FTC Gashua, FTC Michika, FGC Ganye, FGC Azare, FTC Misau, FGGC Bajoga, FGC Billiri and FTC Zambuk.

The directive came just few days after some students were abducted from their school in Kebbi State and following abduction of scores of students from another school in Niger State.

It was reported that terrorists abducted over 52 students and teachers from St. Mary’s Papiri Private Catholic Secondary School, Papiri, in Agwara Local Government Area of Niger State.

The abductions in Niger State followed earlier abduction of about 25 female students from Maga Comprehensive Girls’ Secondary School in Kebbi State, and killing at least one staff member. A school guard also suffered injury during the attack which occurred around 5:52 am.

The Kebbi State Police Public Relations Officer, CSP Nafiu Abubakar, confirmed the attack on Monday, noting that 25 students were taken by the gunmen.

In directing the shutdown of the schools, Hajiya Abdulkadir blamed the decision on the resurgence in the abduction of school students in some parts of the country. She added that the measure would also prevent further breach of security in schools located in vulnerable areas of the country.

But shutting down schools instead of fixing the lingering security crisis is an open metaphor that admits that federal security forces can no longer protect the most basic institutions under their care.

In betraying its scale of frustration with the worsening insecurity in the country, the government appears to be conceding to the bandits by abdicating responsibility for providing protection for pupils who are under the care of public secondary schools in areas where the bandits currently hold sway.

The worsening security situation compounds the nightmares that have kept Nigerian parents awake every night over the fate of their children. It further spreads dread over the fate of law abiding and ambitious citizens who are currently at the mercy of foreign bandits that freely roam our rural and unprotected communities.

And closing these 41 schools does not stop bandits. It only clears their path and removes the burden of responsibility from those in power. If the students are not safe at school, there is less guarantee that they will be safe at home.

Besides, the closure of the affected Unity Colleges does not in any way address insecurity in other public and private schools in the affected regions of the country. This is evident in the attack on St. Mary’s Papiri Private Catholic Secondary School.

Thus, every school closed is a signal to insurgents that they are winning. Every child forced out of the classroom is a silent surrender. Afterall, the key goal of Boko Haram is to impose sharia law and prohibit western education. Therefore, closing the schools aligns with the goals of the jihadists contesting territories in northern Nigeria.

What remains constant in all reports of abductions from the schools is the absence of any level of security resistance or response from the police or the military forces that are predominantly domiciled in the northern parts of the country. And the situation falls into pattern with the wave of Islamist militant attacks that preceded the 2014 general elections that toppled the government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Armed men invade and there are no resistance and no timely response. Students disappear. Security forces arrive after the damage is done. Families bury victims or begin another cycle of waiting and despair. The pattern is always the same.

Since 2009 when the insecurity became a political tool in the country, thousands of students in primary, secondary, university and even the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) have been abducted, injured, maimed, raped and killed during invasion by jihadists.

In apparent replay of sequence of political and security events in the country, lives and fate of the mostly female students in boarding houses form the baits; militants loot them as spoils of war; and the security forces are belatedly sent into forests in futile and understandably hopeless rescue missions that cost more lives and achieve little or no rescue goals.

Thus, the Boko Haram goal of displacing or frustrating western education system in Northern is in progress and unchallenged.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that between 2009 and 2015, Boko Haram destroyed over 910 schools and forced at least 1,500 to close. It also reported that many of the attacks specifically targeting education in the northeast of Nigeria.

In Borno State alone by March 2016, according to a report cited in a JOLAE article, 38 secondary schools had been “totally or partially destroyed” due to the insurgency. The figure does not include primary schools and tertiary colleges that have organically fizzled out as communities escape Boko Haram attacks by going into exile or clustering in camps raised for internally displaced people.

In its official account for the period between 2014 and 2018, federal government counted more than 1,500 primary and secondary schools destroyed in the three northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe.

Until now, there is no widely accepted, up-to-date data publicly available that gives the exact number of victims in the serial attacks by Islamist militants in Nigeria.

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) declared in its report-Education Under Attack 2024 – that the security incidents were primarily carried out by non-state armed groups, including Boko Haram/ISWAP and other armed actors like bandits and armed herdsmen.

The same GCPEA / UN reporting stated that 113 schools were closed for security reasons in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe between January and September 2023, and similar UN / UNICEF report on September 9, 2024, highlights continuing attacks and school closures in Northeastern Nigeria.

A separate UN report stated that some verified incidents by several ISWAP/Boko Haram groups in 2022 targeted students and school personnel.

Whereas the incidents of school attacks reduced after the APC took over government in 2014 and continued to slow down through the administration of late President Muhammadu Buhari, security in the country has dramatically worsened from 2024 into 2025 with renewed ISWAP offensives and increased mass kidnappings.

Worse than the heinous school abductions is the trauma that accompanies disappearance of young children, most of whom have never existed out of home and school care.

It has been one heart-breaking story after another since the shocking invasion of girls’ secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, where Islamist insurgents brazenly trucked out hundreds of young school children as spoils of war against Nigeria.

Despite the global outrage that followed the Chibok incident, Abubakar Shekau who led the insurgents had mocked Nigeria by saying that the girls had been married off to his murderous gang members who had maimed, raped, killed and ultimately decimated the population of villages in the areas where Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) now firmly claims and commands control of territory.

Abducted Chibok girls in Boko Haram captivity

Later, to the utter disbelief of the entire world, the Chibok incident was replicated in Dapchi where large number of schoolgirls were also disappeared by the ISWAP fighters to gratify themselves.

It has become clear therefore that while the government of the incumbent All Progressive Congress (APC) continues to tolerate or disregard the heinous activities of the ferocious insurgents and their sponsors as they convert bright and young Nigerian schoolgirls to breeders that repopulate their tribe.

Another reality that has floated to surface is that the trillions of Naira pumped into begging and placating the bandits and their sponsors to stop killing us have misfired and now become attractive commercial incentive for more attacks. And with weak position of the Nigerian security forces against internal insurgents, high political sentiments weighing in favor of insecurity, and the fragile political stability in the country in the face of separatist agitations; the theory of state failure looms large under the prevailing insecurity.

Periodically pardoning these killers, rehabilitating them and gratifying them with huge cash settlements have become a brazen ruse; a charade the entire public has come to understand.

Oracle Intelligence reports that it is only in Nigeria that Islamist jihadists and killer herdsmen have succeeded in the entire coastal West Africa stretching from the Gulf of Guinea to southern Niger Delta. Other countries including Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ghana Benin and even Togo have swiftly repelled them with military force.

Tales and theories that allude to importation of Sahel militants into Nigeria have many versions. And all of the various narratives are ugly: containing the same malicious intentions that prioritize selfish political ambitions over national peace and stability.

Government officially declared that it knows the sponsors of terrorism in the country. Yet it has refused to publish their names, arrest them or prosecute them. The weakness of government in tackling terrorism and insecurity in the country thus appears to be a political decoy that introduces hopelessness into the whole mess.

And as 2027 presidential polls loom large and the stakes are high, it appears convenient for the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be patient with insecurity, close schools to avoid blames for continued abductions, and also go soft on opponents that threaten violence. It is therefore on this quest for power that those that threaten violence and those that tolerate violence are of the same tribe.

Now, as the stakes for politicians rise in the approaching 2027 elections approach, chaos might be a useful backdrop for political maneuvering. A frightened population is easier to distract. A country drowning in insecurity is easier to manipulate. Shutting schools removes the risk of more abductions, embarrassing the administration. It protects political capital, not children.

The message is clear. Those in power would rather close schools than confront the sponsors of terror they claim to know. They would rather give up territory than expose the weakness of the security architecture. This is not governance. It is political self-preservation dressed up as caution.

It must be understood early enough that whatever that has been conceded to terrorists are difficult to retrieve. Therefore, government of the day must demonstrate courage in dealing with bandits that currently run loose. It must confront insecurity head on. That means tracking and prosecuting the sponsors it claims to know. It means building a security response that stops attacks instead of reacting to them. It means defending schools, not folding them up. It means treating bandits as enemies of the state, not forces to placate.

Every school that closes is a victory for criminals who want to control territory. Every child forced out of class is another proof that government is losing ground. Education cannot be surrendered because insecurity is difficult. Leadership demands more courage than caution.

Closing schools will not fix insecurity. It only confirms what militants want: a frightened country willing to abandon its children’s future.