Gunmen have kidnapped over 300 students and teachers in what is considered the most significant collective seizures in modern Nigerian history, as stated by a religious organization on Saturday.
The Friday morning raid on St Mary's mixed-gender school in Niger state came just a short time after armed men stormed a secondary school in adjacent Kebbi state, taking 25 girls.
Earlier reports had stated 227 individuals were seized, but revised figures surfaced after a detailed verification exercise determined that 303 students and 12 teachers had been abducted.
The taken students, ranging between eight and 18 years, account for nearly half of the school's total student body of 629.
Local authorities have confirmed that security agencies and law enforcement are presently conducting a thorough census to verify the precise number of abducted individuals.
In response to the increasing security concerns, the local authorities has directed the closure of every schools in the state, with nearby states following comparable preventive steps.
Additionally, the federal education department has ordered the provisional closure of 47 boarding secondary schools throughout the country.
President Bola Tinubu has postponed overseas engagements, including attendance at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to focus on addressing the emergency.
The school abductions represent the most recent in a series of security incidents that have rocked the country, including an assault on a church in the west of Nigeria where assailants killed two people and seized many worshipers during a live-streamed service.
These incidents have occurred against the background of global attention on Nigeria's security situation.
Nigeria continues to be traumatized by the memory of the mass abduction of almost 300 schoolgirls by extremist group Boko Haram in Chibok over a ten years ago, with several of those girls still unaccounted for.
In a disturbing video clip circulated by religious organizations, a frightened worker recounted hearing the sounds of motorcycles and vehicles before experiencing "violent banging" on various gates of the school premises.
"Children were screaming," the witness said, describing her panic while looking for keys to the area where the screaming was loudest.
The regional Catholic authority stated that the "attackers acted violently and uninterrupted for almost three hours, searching dormitories."
At the same time, about 600km away on the outskirts of Abuja, concerned guardians were collecting their children from schools following the closure directive.
One mother, a 40-year-old nurse, voiced her disbelief at the scale of the kidnapping, questioning how 300 students could be taken simultaneously.
She concluded that the "government is failing to act to combat insecurity," and expressed approval for external intervention to "resolve this crisis."
For a long time, heavily armed criminal gangs have been conducting killings and abductions for money in rural areas of northern and central Nigeria, where government control is minimal.
While nobody has taken credit for the recent attacks, criminal groups demanding financial compensation frequently target schools in rural areas where security is inadequate.
These groups maintain camps in vast forest areas spanning several states in western Nigeria.
While these criminals have no ideological leanings and are mainly driven by financial gain, their growing cooperation with extremist groups from the north-east has become a significant cause of worry for officials and security analysts alike.
Elara is a seasoned writer and digital storyteller with a passion for exploring diverse literary genres and empowering others through words.
