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Says government inaction fuelling attacks on schools
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the abduction of the Principal of Government Secondary School, Odo-Ekina, a National Examinations Council (NECO) ad hoc official, and students who were writing their Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) in Kogi State on Wednesday.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Wednesday, said the incident is further proof that the Nigerian state has allegedly abdicated its most fundamental responsibility of protecting life, learning, and the future of its children.
The former Vice President stated that the Kogi abduction is not an isolated tragedy but part of a dangerous national pattern in which educational institutions have become preferred targets because criminals no longer fear the Nigerian state.
He noted that “it is both tragic and disgraceful that in today’s Nigeria, children can no longer write public examinations without the terrifying prospect of being marched into the forest by armed criminals.”
According to him, “an examination hall should be a sanctuary of hope, not a crime scene. A school principal should be preparing students for the future, not negotiating with kidnappers. A NECO official should be supervising examinations, not struggling for survival in the hands of bandits. Yet this has become the grim reality under a government that has normalised insecurity.”
“It is impossible to separate this attack from the attitude this administration has displayed towards education. A government that has repeatedly made education more expensive through unprecedented increases in WAEC and NECO examination fees, neglected public schools, failed to secure learning environments and reduced education to empty campaign slogans should not be surprised that criminals now see schools as abandoned territories.”
Atiku, who is also the African Democratic Congress (ADC) 2027 presidential candidate, stated that every successful attack on a school emboldens other criminal groups, making educational institutions increasingly attractive targets because the consequences have been minimal and the response largely reactive.
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According to him, “The bandits have become emboldened because they have watched a government that shows greater urgency for political campaigns than for protecting schools. They have seen a government that mobilises enormous state resources when politics is involved but struggles to provide effective security around educational institutions. Every successful kidnapping convinces another criminal gang that Nigerian schoolchildren are easy targets.
“The collapse of school security is not merely a security failure; it is a collapse of governance itself. A country where children cannot safely write examinations is a country steadily surrendering its future to fear.”
The former Vice President, while calling for the immediate and unconditional rescue of every abducted victim, demanded a comprehensive review of security arrangements for all schools and examination centres across the federation.
He charged the federal government to stop issuing routine statements after every tragedy and instead implement measurable security reforms that restore public confidence.
“History will not remember how many press releases this government issued after each abduction. History will remember whether it protected Nigeria’s children or abandoned them. No nation has ever developed by forcing its children to choose between education and survival.
“A government that devalues education inadvertently empowers those who seek to destroy it. When the state fails to defend its schools, bandits inevitably conclude that nobody else will.
“The children of Nigeria deserve books instead of bullets, classrooms instead of captivity, examinations instead of evacuation, and hope instead of horror. That is the minimum any responsible government owes its people.”
