When will the nightmare of school kidnappings end?

I thought the scary times of bandits and terrorists abducting innocent kids from their classrooms was over. But Nigeria has been thrown back into the horror.

On Thursday, over 280 students and teachers were taken from a primary school and secondary school in Kaduna state. This is a sick reminder that the problem of children being kidnapped from schools is not over yet.

This latest attack takes us back to the nightmare days of 2014 when the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Chibok. It was such an evil and unbelievable act that people around the world were outraged and started the #BringBackOurGirls movement. But ten years later, that movement’s demands are still not fulfilled. Some of those kidnapped schoolgirls are still missing and held captive by the terrorists who took them.

Nigeria has a long and shameful history of children being kidnapped from schools. This has given our country a bad reputation around the world.

After Chibok, 110 more schoolgirls were kidnapped from Dapchi in 2018. One Christian student named Leah Sharibu is still cruelly held captive to this day. In 2020, over 300 boys were taken from their school in Kankara. Students have also been kidnapped from schools in Kebbi, Niger and Kaduna states. The list goes on and on.

Each kidnapping has been worse than the last. Taking children as young as 11 years old away from their schools and families, forcing them to go through unimaginable trauma and abuse by their evil captors, all so the bad people can get money to fund their wars and spread more terror.

After every incident, the federal government makes empty promises to take action but does nothing. We have become used to officials pretending to be outraged, saying the criminals will be punished, and assuring everyone that they are working to free the hostages. But nothing changes. The violence keeps happening without consequences.

This latest mass kidnapping in Kaduna will sadly probably not be the final horrific act in this recurring nightmare for our nation. Despite more security forces being sent and the government’s “safe school initiative”, our children are still vulnerable to being snatched from their classrooms by criminal gangs.

Some people think these bold attacks on our schools have exposed how incompetent our nation’s security forces are. If they cannot keep children safe in areas surrounded by their personnel, how can schools in remote areas controlled by kidnappers be protected?

But I believe they can do better.

This terrible cycle of violence has not only traumatised its young victims, but is devastating education in our country. Parents, fearing for their children’s lives, have taken thousands of students out of the highest risk areas.

Some estimate that up to a million children have already been forced out of school by the threat of being kidnapped.

With over 10 million Nigerian children already out of school before this happened, lacking access to education risks dooming an entire generation to a future of poverty, insecurity and extremism.

This is as huge a threat to our nation as the terrorism and kidnappings themselves.

We cannot allow these latest victims from Kaduna to just become more sad statistics that people quickly forget about like usual.

Their mass kidnapping must be a wake-up call that forces the government to finally take drastic comprehensive action.

Billions more must be spent upgrading security at schools across the country, including fences, cameras, armed guards and secure transportation. Military operations need to drastically increase to clear out the areas controlled by kidnappers that have become breeding grounds for these evil crimes.

But most importantly, there finally needs to be accountability for these catastrophic security failures. The authorities responsible for allowing such horrific school kidnappings to keep happening must be identified and removed from their positions.

If not, we risk resigning ourselves to many more generations of Nigerian children having their futures and lives senselessly ripped away. We owe it to the victims of these tragic kidnappings – to the daughters of Chibok still awaiting their freedom – to say enough is enough.

This week’s mass kidnapping from Kaduna must represent a breaking point for our nation; one where we dedicate all resources to eradicating this evil problem once and for all. Our children’s futures depend on it.