By Oso Abidemi\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
Twenty-four schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State, have regained their freedom after spending seven days in captivity.<\/p>\n
The students were taken in the early hours of November 17 when armed attackers stormed the school shortly after a military detachment reportedly withdrew from the area.<\/p>\n
The abduction sparked widespread concern over renewed threats to school safety across the North-West.<\/p>\n
President Bola Tinubu, in a statement on Tuesday, confirmed the release of the girls and commended the security agencies for their efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am relieved that all 24 girls have been accounted for. Now, we must put as a matter of urgency more boots on the ground in the vulnerable areas to avert further incidents of kidnapping. My government will offer all the assistance needed to achieve this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The attack added to the growing list of mass kidnappings targeting schools, a trend that has continued since the 2014 Chibok abductions and forced several northern states to shut down schools in high-risk locations.<\/p>\n
While security agencies were working to locate the Kebbi schoolgirls, gunmen on November 21 struck again, this time at St. Mary\u2019s Papiri Private Catholic Secondary School in Agwara, Niger State, abducting students and teachers during a pre-dawn raid.<\/p>\n
The release of the Kebbi schoolgirls comes barely days after 38 worshippers kidnapped from Christ Apostolic Church Oke Isegun in Eruku, Kwara State, were freed following a joint security operation that lasted five days and left three worshippers dead.<\/p>\n
A 2023 Save the Children report estimates that more than 1,680 students and teachers have been kidnapped from Nigerian schools since 2014, with the northern region bearing most of the burden.<\/p>\n
The latest rescue once again highlights rising insecurity in rural communities and the urgent need for enhanced protection for schools across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Oso Abidemi\u00a0 Twenty-four schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State, have regained their freedom after spending seven days in captivity. The students were taken in the early hours of November 17 when armed attackers stormed the school shortly after a military detachment reportedly withdrew from the area. The abduction […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":79353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1724,172],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-79352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insecurity","category-news","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79354,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79352\/revisions\/79354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}