By Ibe Pascal Arogorn
Everyone cannot be a victim of the continuous and outrageous insecurity that exists in Nigeria now. How can a qualitative and sound education be achieved when students and teachers continue to live in palpable fear of kidnappings by bandits?
Person whose house is burn doesn’t chase rats. Who go have the appetite to learn?
The question on table should be, of what advantage will abducting students have on the abductors The answer is not far to guess, it has become a lucrative business where hoodlums see it as an employment opportunity to thrive.
During the evening of 11 December 2020, over 300 pupils. were kidnapped from a boys’ secondary boarding school on the outskirts of Kankara, Katsina State, northern Nigeria. A gang of gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Government Science Secondary School, where more than 800 pupils reside, for over an hour.
On 12 December, the armed forces said they found the gang’s hideout in a forest and exchanged gunfire with them.
On 13 December, an unidentified Beechcraft Super King Air 350i ISR aircraft was seen patrolling the eastern Kano region in search of the missing pupils. The Super King Air 350i ISR aircraft took off from Niamey and patrolled the Kano airspace for over 10 hours. The yet to be identified special mission aircraft was tracked using open-source intelligence (OSINT) tools, even though it blocked its Mode S tracking to conceal its identity.
On 14 December, Katsina’s governor Aminu Bello Masari said the kidnappers had contacted them and negotiations were ongoing for the release of the students. An audio message was released on 15 December, purporting to be from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, claiming that the group kidnapped the students. However, no proof was provided by the man in the audio. A video released later with the group’s emblem purported to show it with some of the kidnapped boys.
Information minister Lai Mohammed denied Boko Haram’s hand and said the kidnapping was done by bandits. Officials from Katsina and Zamfara states later said that the abductions were carried out by criminal gangs, consisting mostly of former Fulani herders who wanted to take revenge against others through the kidnapping. Northwest Nigeria has previously witnessed clashes between mostly Fulani herders and the mostly Hausa farmers. They told Reuters that they established contact with the kidnappers through their clan, a cattle breeders’ association and reformed gang members. The gang members accused vigilante groups of killing herders and taking their cows.
On 17 December, Masari said that 344 of the victims had been freed from where they were being held in a wood in neighbouring Zamfara State.
Since December, more than 600 students have been abducted from schools in north-west Nigeria, highlighting a worrying development in the country’s kidnap-for-ransom crisis.
The kidnapping of nearly 300 students from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara state, which ended with their release, was the second mass kidnap from schools in less than 10 days. Twenty-seven boys and their teachers who were taken from a school in Kagara, Niger state on 17 February were released on Saturday.
The authorities say recent attacks on schools in the north-west have been carried out by “bandits”, a loose term for kidnappers, armed robbers, cattle rustlers, Fulani herdsmen and other armed militia operating in the region who are largely motivated by money.
Many here believe that a weak security infrastructure and governors who have little control over security in their states – the police and army are controlled by the federal government – and have resorted to paying ransoms, have made mass abductions a lucrative source of income.
It is an accusation the governors deny. Zamfara governor Bello Matawalle, who in the past has promised “repentant” bandits with houses, money and cars, said people “not comfortable [with his] peace initiative” were sabotaging his efforts to end the crisis.
Until now, kidnap victims have generally been road travellers in Nigeria’s north-west, who pay between $20 and $200,000 for their freedom, but since the well-publicised abduction in 2014 of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok secondary school by Boko Haram Islamist militants in Borno state, more armed groups have resorted to mass abduction of students.
Kidnapping hundreds of students rather than road travellers, guarantees publicity and government involvement in negotiations, which could mean millions of dollars in ransom payments.
Security expert Kemi Okenyodo believes that this has made the abductions lucrative for criminal gangs.
“The decision on payment of ransom should be reviewed. What are the best steps to take in preventing the abductions so we avoid the payment of ransom?” she asked.
President Muhammadu Buhari has also insinuated that state governors were fuelling the crisis.
“State governments must review their policy of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles. Such a policy has the potential to backfire with disastrous consequences,” he said.
The mastermind of the abduction of more than 300 students in Katsina state in December was recently pardoned in nearby Zamfara state after he “repented” and handed over his weapons to the government.
Auwalu Daudawa and his gang were promised accommodation in the town by Governor Matawalle, along with assistance to improve their livelihoods.
In July last year, Mr Matawalle promised bandits two cows for every AK-47 gun they surrendered.
Unlike his predecessor who was severely criticised for his handling of the Chibok girls kidnapping, Mr Buhari has not come in for huge amounts of public condemnation over the kidnap crisis, largely due to goodwill earned from negotiating the release of some of the Chibok girls in his early days.
His supporters also say that his government has been more responsive in securing the release of abducted students, though dozens, including Leah Sharibu, a Christian who was kidnapped when Boko Haram attacked their school in Dapchi in 2018, remain in captivity.
But security in Nigeria has deteriorated under Mr Buhari – there have been.many reported mass abductions of students under his watch. That three of those have happened in the north-west highlights the worsening insecurity in that part of the country, while much international attention is focussed on the Boko Haram insurgency hundreds of miles away in the north-east.
THE THREAD REACHES SOUTHEAST
The Punch reported how Gunmen abducted many students of Abia state university Uturu on Thursday.
According to reports, Abia State’s Commissioner of Information, John Kalu, said the students were abducted along the Okigwe-Uturu road in the state.
“Preliminary information available to us indicates that the students were moving in a mini van from Okigwe to Uturu between 7pm – 8pm when they ran into the armed gang who marched them into the nearby forest along with other yet to be identified travelers,” the statement said.
“Two of the students managed to escape from the hoodlums while others are still being held at a yet to be identified location.
The Southeast of Nigeria which has been seen as most secured and peaceful region is fast turning into an avenue of abduction , a theatre of war with coming of the unknown gunmen with little or no measures to slow it down.
A “Safe School Initiative” was launched after the Chibok girls were abducted to bolster security in schools in north-eastern Nigeria by building fences around them.
At least $20m ($14m) was pledged for the three-year project, which was supported by the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister.
Many container schools were built as temporary learning spaces as part of the scheme, but it is not known if any fences were built in communities affected.
Though most of the recent kidnappings have happened in the north-west, which were not covered by the Safe Schools Initiative, the 2018 abduction of 110 schoolgirls from Dapchi in north-eastern Yobe state raised questions about the success of the initiative.
Nigeria’s military has built posts close to some schools, but the number of schools in the north means many are left unprotected.
Some schools have employed local vigilantes armed with local weapons but this has often proved ineffective against the heavily armed bandits.
Authorities in Kano and Yobe states ordered more than 20 schools shut at the weekend because of the insecurity.
Some schools were also recently closed in Zamfara and Niger states.
In Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, dozens of schools have been shut for years because of the Boko Haram insurgency.
For a region with a high rate of out-of-school children, this is a massive disruption to gains that have been recorded in recent years, made worse by last year’s restrictions imposed because of Covid.
According to Unicef, there is a net attendance rate of just 53% in primary schools in northern Nigeria though education at that level is free and compulsory. The levels for girls is even lower because of socio-cultural norms and practices that discourage attendance in formal education, it said.
“The implication of these [abductions] is parents or guardians get scared of allowing their wards to go to school,” said Ms Shonibare.
“This literally takes us back on the gains that we have made [especially] when it comes to girl-child education,” she said.
The spate of attacks on schools in the north-west signals a double assault on education in the region.
The bandits, motivated by money, might be ideologically different from groups like Boko Haram in the north-east, which are against secular education, but together, they are having a devastating effect on education across northern Nigeria.
It become has necessary that government should provide adequate security for schools or shut it down
As it rages, we don’t know who and which school is next, you don’t wait till it reaches your path.
Ibe Pascal Arogorn,/ a journalist, writer and public affairs analyst writes from Bishop’s court Owerri
