Bring Back The Children, Sen Ndume Charges Military

For the families in Southern Borno, school has become a place of fear.

Every morning, parents once watched their children leave home with books, uniforms, and dreams of a better future.

But for some families in Mussa and Lassa communities, those ordinary journeys to school ended with children being taken away by insurgents.

And weeks later, the question remains painfully simple: Where are our children?

That question has now prompted renewed calls for the military to intensify its search for dozens of pupils and students abducted from schools in Southern Borno.

The latest appeal came from Senator Ali Ndume, the former Senate Leader representing Borno South, during a visit to the Theatre Command, North-East Operation Hadin Kai, where he met with the Theatre Commander, Major General Abdulsalam Abubakar.

Ndume urged the military to sustain and intensify operations to locate the abducted students and reunite them with their families.

“We know you are making efforts, but because of the anxiety we all share and the length of time these people have remained away from their families, I have to continue to push for greater effort,” Ndume said.

“The people are anxious, and the families are waiting. We appreciate what the military is doing, but we will continue to appeal for greater efforts until our people are reunited with their families.”

His appeal reflects the growing anxiety among families who have spent weeks waiting for news of their loved ones.

The day school became a scene of fear

In May, suspected insurgents attacked Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira/Uba Local Government Area and abducted about 42 pupils.

The children, who had gone to school to learn, were instead forced into captivity as the attackers fled the community.

For their parents, the disappearance has transformed everyday life into a painful wait.

School bags remain reminders of children who should be sitting in classrooms. Families continue to hope that the next phone call will bring news of a rescue rather than another demand or silence.

Then came another attack.

In June, insurgents invaded Government Day Secondary School, Lassa, also in Askira/Uba, abducting 36 students and a teacher.

The attacks exposed the vulnerability of schools in communities that have endured years of insurgency and raised fresh questions about how safe it is for children to return to classrooms in conflict-affected parts of Nigeria.

The incidents also brought back memories of a crisis that has haunted the country for more than a decade.

From Chibok to Mussa and Lassa

On the night of April 14, 2014, Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State.

The girls had gathered to write their final secondary school examinations.

Instead of returning home after their exams, they were taken into the Sambisa Forest.

The Chibok abduction shocked Nigeria and the world. The global campaign for their release became known as #BringBackOurGirls, turning the plight of the students into one of the most recognisable symbols of Nigeria’s insurgency.

But Chibok was not an isolated tragedy.

It became a grim template for attacks on schools, particularly in northern Nigeria, where armed groups discovered that children could be used to terrorise communities, pressure governments, and generate international attention.

In the years that followed, schools in Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Yobe, Kebbi, and other states were attacked, with hundreds of students and education workers abducted.

UNICEF said more than 1,680 children had been abducted while at school and elsewhere during the decade following the Chibok attack. The agency also documented 180 children killed in attacks on schools, alongside dozens of education workers kidnapped or killed.

The figures represent more than statistics.

Behind every number is a family.

A mother waiting at the gate.

A father making frantic calls.

A sibling sleeping in an empty room.

A classroom with one less chair.

A crisis that keeps moving

The geography of school abductions has also changed.

While Boko Haram’s insurgency remains concentrated in the North-East, criminal kidnapping gangs have turned schools in parts of the North-West and North-Central into targets.

In some cases, attackers have demanded ransom. In others, children have simply been taken away from their communities and held for weeks or months.

The result is the same: fear.

Parents who once saw education as the route out of poverty are increasingly forced to weigh the value of schooling against the possibility of losing a child.

For rural communities, the choice can be especially difficult.

A school may be the only realistic opportunity for children to receive formal education. Yet those same schools may have inadequate fencing, limited security personnel, poor communication systems and little capacity to respond to armed attacks.

The consequences go beyond those abducted.

When parents withdraw children from school because they fear attacks, the impact is felt across an entire generation.

More than 700 students and staff abducted

The scale of the problem remains alarming.

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack reported that more than 700 students and education personnel were kidnapped in Nigeria during 2024 and 2025.

The figures show that school abductions have not disappeared despite years of military operations, safe-school initiatives and government promises to protect educational institutions.

Nigeria’s experience also forms part of a wider global crisis.

The coalition documented thousands of attacks on education around the world during 2024 and 2025, including killings, injuries, abductions and attacks on schools.

But in Nigeria, the consequences are particularly painful because the country has already lived through the trauma of Chibok and several other mass school kidnappings.

The military’s response

Ndume was careful to acknowledge the sacrifices of Nigerian troops.

He said his appeal should not be interpreted as an indictment of the military, noting improvements in the security situation across Borno and other parts of the North-East.

He also praised the coordination between the military and other security agencies in the fight against insurgency.

Responding to the senator, Major General Abubakar said the concerns over the abducted victims had been noted.

He reaffirmed the military’s commitment to ongoing operations aimed at protecting communities, stabilising affected areas and facilitating the return of displaced residents.

The Theatre Commander also disclosed plans to recruit about 1,000 youths from Southern Borno, mainly from Gwoza Local Government Area, into the Nigerian Army.

According to him, the recruitment would strengthen the military’s presence and improve its capacity to respond to threats in vulnerable communities.

The military also plans to establish new formations, deploy additional troops and strengthen existing sectors across vulnerable areas.

The human cost of an empty classroom

Yet for the families of the missing children, military plans and security assessments cannot answer the question that matters most.

They want their children home.

For them, the crisis is not measured in the number of attacks recorded in a report or the number of troops deployed to an operational theatre.

It is measured in birthdays celebrated without a son or daughter.

It is measured in uniforms that are no longer worn, examination results that may never be collected and parents who still look towards the road whenever they hear approaching vehicles.

The story of Nigeria’s school abductions has been told repeatedly through statistics: 276 girls in Chibok, dozens in Mussa, dozens more in Lassa, and hundreds across the country.

But each number represents a child whose education was interrupted and a family forced to live with uncertainty.

More than a decade after Chibok, the question remains whether Nigeria can make its schools places where children can learn without fear.

Until the abducted pupils and students are brought home, that question will continue to hang over classrooms across the country.