In the pre-dawn darkness of Sunday, armed bandits in army camouflage stormed a Kebbi State boarding school, executing two staff members and snatching 25 terrified female students in a ruthless assault that has left widows shattered and officials scrambling for a rescue.
The attackers, identified by survivors as Fulani speakers, targeted Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Danko/Wasagu district, firing sporadically to sow panic before breaching the Adamu Aliero Hostel and herding girls into the night.
The vice principal was dragged from his quarters and shot at point-blank range after being forced to recite his final prayers, while the security guard fell with a chest wound as he confronted the intruders. One girl escaped by fleeing into the bush after feigning a need to relieve herself.
Malama Amina, widow of the slain vice principal, recounted the brutality in a voice trembling with grief: “They forced the door open and woke him, asked him to say his last prayers. While doing it, they shot him at close range and he died immediately. They were Fulanis because I heard them speaking Fulani, dressed in army camouflage.”
The security guard’s unnamed widow, breaking down in tears, described the chaos: “My husband and I were sleeping in the room when I heard a strange noise close to our window around 4 am. I tapped my husband… telling him that goats had entered our house. He woke up and walked out… only to see heavily armed men. When we saw them, we began to pray in the Islamic way. While doing that, they shot my husband straight in the chest. He fell and blood began to rushed. When I attempted to cover the hole to stop blood from gushing, they cocked their guns and warned me to stop else they would kill me too.”
She added the harrowing escape of her daughter: “That was when our daughter came out of the room. They took her to the hostel and asked her to lie down so they could shoot her. She begged them to allow her ease herself, so they left and went after other students. It was then she ran into the bush in the dead of the night till daybreak before she got to safety and returned home. That was how she managed to escape.”
Kebbi Governor Nasir Idris, cutting short an official trip to visit the bloodied scene, vowed swift retribution alongside Chief of Army Staff Major General Waidi Shuaibu: “Take me by my words, your children will be rescued very soon.”
Shuaibu echoed the pledge: “The presidential order on the rescue operations is on course and will soon materialise.”
Police spokesperson CSP Nafiu Abubakar confirmed 25 abductions — down from initial reports of 27 — and mobilised a joint task force of troops, officers and vigilantes. “A tactical team has been raised to begin rescue operations of the abducted students. Efforts are being intensified to ensure no student in captivity gets hurt by the bandits,” he said.
The raid, the latest in a string of school sieges across Nigeria’s bandit-plagued northwest, has ignited fury over porous security, with parents besieging the gates in desperate vigils. Rights advocates decried the targeting of girls’ education, demanding federal airstrikes and intelligence overhauls to end the cycle of terror gripping remote communities.
