By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Kaduna has reopened schools shut due to kidnappings, but 30 of the 34 boarding schools in Adamawa have been de-boarded and all primary and secondary schools in Zamfara remain closed.
That provides the backdrop for UNICEF to estimate that at least one million children in Nigeria could miss school this year as the new term begins amid a rise in mass school kidnappings and insecurity.
UNICEF estimates that 1.3 million Nigerian children have been affected by frequent raids on schools by gunmen.
Schools have become targets for mass abductions for ransom in the North by armed groups who attack both city and rural communities on a daily basis.
CNN reports that such kidnappings were first carried out by jihadist group Boko Haram then later its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province, but the tactic has now been adopted by criminal gangs.
So far, there have been 20 attacks on schools in Nigeria this year, with more than 1,400 children abducted and 16 dead, UNICEF said, adding that more than 200 children are still missing.
“Learners are being cut off from their education … as families and communities remain fearful of sending children back to their classrooms due to the spate of school attacks and student abductions in Nigeria,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF Representative in Nigeria.
More than 37 million Nigerian children are due to start the new school year this month, UNICEF said.
An estimated eight million have had to wait for more than a year for in-person learning after schools were closed due to COVID-19 lockdowns.
Insecurity also led to school closures.
Several states in the North West have tried to curb the spate of abductions by banning the sale of fuel in jerry cans and the transport of firewood in trucks in order to disrupt gangs who travel by motorbike and camp in remote places.
In Abuja, the start of the school term has been pushed back to an unusually late date without explanation, after schools in nearby states were targeted by kidnappers seeking ransoms.
Mobile network providers in Zamfara state were directed to shut down communications for two weeks “to enable relevant security agencies to carry out required activities towards addressing the security challenge in the state,” the Nigeria Communications Commission said in a letter.
The directive came after at least 73 students were abducted from a state-run high school in Zamfara’s Maradun district. All those students have been freed.
Military authorities are carrying out targeted raids on the hideouts of kidnappers and other criminal gangs in the state, who are known locally as ‘bandits’.
$18.34m paid in ransoms in nine years
Between June 2011 and March 2020, an estimated $18.34 million was paid in ransoms to kidnappers, SBM Intelligence based in Lagos said in a report last year titled “The economics of the kidnap industry in Nigeria,” quoted by CNN.
Amnesty International has described this latest incident in Zamfara as “disturbing,” saying in a tweet that “attacks on schools and abductions of children are war crimes.”
“The children abducted are in serious risk of being harmed. Nigerian authorities must take all measures to return them to safety,” Amnesty added.