MAGA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's leader has vowed to step up efforts by authorities to rescue 24 schoolgirls kidnapped by gunmen earlier this week from a school in the country's restive northwestern region.
The girls were abducted from their hostel before dawn on Monday when gunmen attacked their boarding school, a government girls' secondary school in Maga town in Nigeria's Kebbi state. Local police said the gunmen climbed over a fence to enter the dormitory and exchanged gunfire with police guarding the school before snatching the girls and killing a staff member.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but analysts and local residents say the gangs often target schools, travelers and remote villagers, kidnapping them for ransom. Authorities say the militants are mostly former herders who took up arms against farming communities after clashes between them over dwindling resources.
Khawau Usman, a 15-year-old student who was among those abducted, managed to escape.
“They kept moving and when they left, I ran back to school,” Usman told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
“I knocked on the director’s house, but no one answered,” she said. adding that she later took refuge in the teacher's house.
President Bola Tinubu said in a statement issued late on Tuesday that he had “ordered security agencies to act quickly and return the girls to Kebbi State.”
Tinubu, who heads to South Africa on Wednesday where he will attend the G20 summit of the world's richest and leading developing countries this weekend, lamented that “heartless terrorists have disrupted the education of innocent schoolgirls.”
At least 1,500 schoolchildren have been kidnapped in the region since jihadist extremists Boko Haram seized 276 Chibok schoolgirls more than a decade ago. But bandits are also active in the region, and analysts say gangs often target schools to attract attention.
Analysts and local residents blame the lack of security on a failure to prosecute known attackers, as well as rampant corruption that limits the supply of weapons to security forces while ensuring a steady supply to gangs.
Senator Irogbu, an Abuja-based security analyst, told the AP on Wednesday that the kidnappers ultimately dictate their terms, but said he hoped the girls would be rescued.
“Intelligence efforts must be prioritized to find the kidnappers without putting the girls in danger. If contact is made, negotiations – likely with a ransom – may be required,” he said.
Nigeria's Army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu, met with soldiers hours after the attack and led “intelligence-led operations and a relentless, 24-hour pursuit of the kidnappers,” according to an army statement.
“We must find these children. Act decisively and professionally on all intelligence,” he said. “Success is not optional.”
The army chief called for joint efforts by all security forces, including local vigilantes and hunters, in rescuing the girls.
Dan Juma Umar, a civil society leader in Maga, said this was not the first time armed men had attacked the area and that residents had alerted security officials of “suspicious movements” three days before the school attack.
“We notified security officials of the planned attack. If they had acted on the information we provided, this tragedy could have been avoided,” he told the AP.
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Shibayan reported from Abuja, Nigeria.
