ON March 7, over 100 students were kidnapped in Kuriga town in Kaduna state. While the incident generated public outrage among Nigerians reports barely covered the details of the incident, including how and why the students endured such a life-threatening ordeal. In this report, The ICIR’s Mustapha Usman speaks with the victims and parents of the abducted children.

Three weeks after gun-blazing bandits freed her abducted son, Hauwa’u Haruna still feels despair resulting from the incident that led to the abduction of 137 schoolchildren in the remote town of Kuriga in Kaduna state. The shock in her is apparent, and her teary eyes betray her grief, even as she struggles to hold back the tears cascading down her cheeks during the interview. 

When the bandits kidnapped the schoolchildren, her husband, Abubakar Isah, who happened to be the school principal, was taken along but would not return alive as he died in captivity, succumbing to the torture and continuous beating inflicted on him by the bandits.

Haruna says she remembers her forty-year-old husband anytime she sets her eyes on her son, Isah Abubakar, who witnessed the gruesome killing of his father. “When I heard the news that the terrorists kidnapped the students, including my first child and my husband, I was really shocked. I was in this difficult situation when I learnt that my husband died in the hands of the bandits,” Haruna says.

The couple has five children together, and the burden of responsibilities has now completely shifted to her despite being a full housewife with no means of income.

“I do not have any business when my husband is alive as he took care of the family, but I am thinking of continuing with my husband’s business, which is selling cosmetics products,” she adds. 

Lying close to her is her son, a fourteen-year-old Abubakar. He had seen firsthand the brutal assault and torture inflicted upon his father by the bandits until his very last gasp.

Just like other abducted students, he was terrified of the masked assailants. He wouldn’t dare speak of relationship to his principal (father) during the incident that saw them hurtled out of school and led into the wilderness along Birnin Gwari, down to Zamfara at gunpoint.

He now wonders if he can continue his education in Kuriga, which will be a constant reminder of the trauma he faced. 

How did the abduction happen?

On Thursday, March 7, students had begun to gather for their morning assembly when they started to hear gunshots from every corner of the unfenced school premises. While the students tried to flee in different directions for safety, it was unknown to them that they had been cornered.

There was no means of escape. The local security and some of the residents, despite quickly arming themselves, could only watch the bandits go away with their children due to the fear of shooting down their wards. During the attack, the bandits shot a local security man dead and scared away other residents with sporadic, relentless and indiscriminate shooting. 

The terrorists who came through the forest leading to Birnin Gwari, bordering Zamfara state, gathered all students and some of the teachers in the school premises and had them in a couple of lines. When everyone was in the same place, they escorted them into the forest, with some bandits leading the way with motorcycles.

“As we were coming out of the principal office, we saw several bandits around the school premises and found out that there was no way we could run to the town. They asked us to enter the bush that they wanted to ask us few questions, and then we followed their instruction and entered the bush, with cane and gun in their hands,” says one of the secondary school teachers, Abdullahi Sani.

The LEA Primary and Secondary School sit by the road just at the town’s entrance, tucked in the middle of forests. The primary and secondary schools initially had separate buildings, but in 2021, the school authorities made a bold step to merge the school after receiving an order from the state government to either move the school from the outskirts of the town to the main town or shut it down. This, the teachers said, was to keep the hope of their students alive.

Contrary to the reported abduction of 287 schoolchildren from the LEA Primary and Secondary School in Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area (LEA) of Kaduna state, authorities gave the number of abducted children as 137. Additionally, the abducted students and parents who spoke to The ICIR confirmed the number to be 137.

Before the incident, there had been a series of attacks and abductions in Kuriga and some other neighbouring villages, including the kidnapping of one of the abducted student parent, Hama Abdullahi, before she was released after a ransom was paid.

Although, unlike the previous mass abduction of  Federal Government College (FGC) Birnin-Yauri, Kebbi state, where letters were delivered to the school, teachers and residents said they received no letter but have always taken precautionary measures and, most times, have their men outside on a night watch.

For the past seven years, Kaduna state has become a hub of insecurity, facing relentless attacks by bandits, with reports indicating that a tleast 10 out of the 23 Local Government Areas (LGAs) have been targeted.

While the attacks subsided last year, the state still accounted for massive figures in both the death and kidnappings of residents in the country, as about 200 were reportedly killed, 700 residents kidnapped alone in the first quarter of 2023, and unconfirmed numbers of people were displaced. 

The Journey from Kaduna to Zamfara

The journey into the terrorist camp said to be Dan Sadau, in Zamfara state, was a nightmare for the abducted schoolchildren. For gruelling two days, the students journeyed through various villages and towns in the deep forest under the scorching sun that drained their energy each passing hour on empty stomachs.

With the hope that they would be at the destination soon after the invasion, thirteen-year-old Fatima Muhammad kept heeding the bandits’ instructions, but the journey would not end until after over 40 hours of trekking.

She and other captives were marched onward without access to food or water, and any attempt to slow their pace, possibly due to exhaustion, resulted in whipping.

Muhammad, who is a Jss 2 student hoping to become a medical practitioner, says it was impossible for her and her colleagues to run away as they were heavily surrounded, “we tried our best to run away, but it was impossible, the terrorists went away with us on known destination. We spent two days walking with our feet before we went to where they kept us in a forest around Zamfara state, we suffered because of these long days. There is not a day that we do not cry because of the hardship”.

During the long hours of the journey to Dan Sadau, about five students who spoke with The ICIR say there were no attempts by the security operatives to rescue them from the hands of the bandits.

Findings by The ICIR reveal that Kuriga, where the kidnapping occurred, is approximately 45 kilometres away from Birnin Gwari and about 90.6 kilometres from Zamfara state.

Read Also:

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Security posts everywhere, but none to the rescue

The terrorists avoided the usual roads and moved the children through the dense forest, likely extending the journey beyond the estimated 90.6 kilometres. Using Google Maps for estimation, the journey from Kuriga, Kaduna state, to Dan Sadau—a distance of about 90.6 kilometres—would take approximately 20 hours and 13 minutes on foot, travelling nonstop. 

However, the students said it took them two days to get into the camp, probably due to their large number. 

This means that for an approximately 48-hour journey, the Nigerian security operatives couldn’t locate or intercept the abducted students or chose to allow the assailants to carry on with activities, despite the extensive time frame and the considerable distance covered.

Besides, there are about 13 military checkpoints along the Kaduna-Birnin Gwari road, with the closest checkpoint just about 5-minute drive away from the school. The ICIR also gathered that there is a military camp near Udawa, which is about an hour’s drive away from Kuriga.

Likewise, in Birnin Gwari, which is about 45 kilometres away from where the abduction took place, there is a military base that’s barely a 30-minute journey on a drive from the town.

Aside from a military base in Udawa and Birnin Gwari, there are other military establishments in the state, which include the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), 1 Infantry Division, Jaji; Command and Staff College and Nigerian Army School of Infantry (NASI) Jaji; Nigerian Army School of Artillery (NASA), and the Nigerian Navy School of Armament Technology, both at Kachia.

In past kidnapping incidents, the government and the military had given excuses that the bandits were using civilians as shields to allow them to carry on with their activities unhindered.

Life in captivity: feeding on dog food, sleeping in dense bushes

When the students eventually reached the bandits’ camp on Saturday, March 9, where they would spend 14 days, some of them had already given up on any possible freedom.

Although their arrival at the camp meant they would have enough time to rest, recuperate from the long journey, and get something to eat, the students still found it hard to adjust to the deep forest, even though they had met some people in captivity.

Fatima Muhammad says the bandits treated them to dog food and sometimes fed them handfuls of Koko (the local name for pap) twice a day. “We drank what the dogs drank; they fed us with Koko two times a day, which they assigned some among us to cook for us,” she explains, noting that it was an unforgettable period of her life.

“When we got there, we met some people who were also abducted by the terrorists, but women were the majority among them, but they had to collect the ransom money for some of them before moving there…

 “They put us in a place that surrounded is with grass, we stayed there, and the terrorists did not let us make eye contact with them and most of them were wearing military uniforms and covered their faces with face masks,” Abdullahi adds.

Also, fifteen-year-old Nura Haruna, a JSS 2, says the experience in captivity was unprecedented as they were maltreated every day and made to do some hard chores.

“I was in the classroom when I heard some of my colleagues running around shouting. I don’t know the bandits had surrounded the school. I tried to run out but was not able to because there were too many. Without any options, we followed them to Dan Sadau forest around Zamfara state, where they kept us for sixteen days without bathing or washing. There was no good food,” he says, struggling to articulate the ordeal.

The experience was similar for a few other students, including Abubakar, Sadiyyah Muhammad, Suleiman and Faimah, who spoke with The ICIR.

A rescue or paid ransom?

It was on the 16th day that the military announced the release of the schoolchildren. However, there were concerns as to whether the government or families of the abducted children paid ransom to the bandits for the release of the children due to vague statements by the military and the state government.

While all the parents, teachers and community leaders The ICIR spoke to said that no ransom was paid to the terrorists from their end and received no calls instructing them to pay such, some of the students who were in the bandits’ camp pointed out that they were ‘picked up’ by the military where they sat without any sort of gun-duel or resistance from the terrorists.

Fatimah tells The ICIR that “it was our 16th day, and we saw some soldiers coming where we were staying and said we should leave and follow them today that they would take us home.

Continuing with a beam of a smile on her face, she says, “We happily followed them to where the cars were parked, and all of us were 137, except for our principal, who died as a result of beating because they broke his nose and he was bleeding, and he died.  After that, we landed in Kaduna and the government of Kaduna state took responsibility for caring for all of us, changing our clothes, giving us food and good oysters, and checking our health.”

Having lost his father to the torture inflicted on them by the bandits, Abubakar, the principal’s son, says he had given up until he saw some soldiers arrive at their camp and asked them to follow them to a village in Zamfara state.

“On the road before we left, we had a lot of trouble with those terrorists because we walked down to Zamfara state with our legs, and they kept us outside in the grass. The food we give to the dog is what they give us twice a day, and the kind of water that cows drink is what we take. 

“One day, we were sitting until some soldiers arrived on Saturday, and they told us to leave today and go home. But then we started walking to a village in Zamfara state, the name of which we do not know. Then we were taken in cars to Gusau town. And then Kaduna, where we spent at least five days,” he adds.

However, when The ICIR contacted the Defence Headquarters spokesman, Tukur Gusau, to confirm whether the children were released or rescued, he directed the reporter to the Kaduna State government, which refused to comment on our findings.

Community police station closed down due to severity of insecurity – residents

Long before the attack, Kuriga had been witnessing a series of attacks from bandits who mostly stopped by the community anytime they were on a mission to ravage some communities. The town, which is very close to Zamfara, a state that has suffered banditry attacks in recent attacks, from the hands of Dogo Gide’s men and ISWAP, has seen some of the prominent sons lose their lives to incessant attacks.

When the bandits abducted the schoolchildren, the community was still reeling from the brutal killing of the former principal of Government Secondary School, Kuriga,  Idris Sufyan.

The terrorist had fatally shot him in his home and also abducted his wife and their infant in January before the two were later rescued in a joint military operation on 3 February.

The attack that claimed Sufyan’s life was not an isolated event, as the community youth leader, Salis Musa Abdulsalam, notes that the continuous attacks on the community have led to the shutdown of major markets, such as Birnin Gwari, Udawa Buruku, and could not go back to farming.

“As a result of this banditry, many have high blood pressure, many become very poor, and many women divorced as such we calling on the state and the federal government to continue providing security agencies to our community so as to end activities those terrorists In the area,” he tells The ICIR.

Sufyan was the principal replaced by Isah after his demise. With the two, the bandits have now killed no fewer than five teachers in the town.

However, despite the severity of the attacks, residents said the police station in Kuriga closed down in 2021 when the attacks became too frequent and demanding, leaving them to deal with the bandits themselves.

They also noted that the lack of minimal security presence in the area and the disconnection of telecommunication services in 2021 exacerbated the challenges faced in calling for security help.

The ICIR reports that on September 29, the Kaduna government announced several restrictions, including the shut mobile communication in some parts of the state, aimed at addressing the deteriorating security, including the shutdown of telecom services in parts of the state. 

Although The ICIR could report the return of police officers in the area, as this reporter counted 13 military checkpoints and five other checkpoints when touring the dangerous 89-kilometre road running from Kuriga town to the city of Kaduna, the network service in the area is still very poor.

Residents also confirmed the return of dozens of police officers to the town since the recent abduction.

Serial school abductions impede education in Northern Nigeria

Data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 2020 Model Estimates on  out-of-school children, published in 2022, shows that the secondary school out-of-school population has grown by 61 per cent, from 6.3 million to 10 million since 2010, while the number of primary school-aged children who are not in school also increased by 50 per cent, from 6.4 million to 9.7 million since 2010.

According to the data, almost 20 million Nigerian children are out of school, putting Nigeria as the country with the third-highest number of children deprived of education, only behind India and Pakistan.

Insecurity, as reported by UNICEF, stands out as a major reason for this humanitarian crisis. In many regions battling with insecurity, particularly Kaduna, some communities have been deserted, leaving schools shuttered and interrupting the education of countless children at both the primary and secondary levels.

In 2021,  following the mass abduction of students of the Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna, the state government ordered the closure of schools in the state.

According to the state Ministry of Education’s Annual School Census Report 2018/2019/February 2020, the closure affected over 5,000 pre-primary to senior secondary schools, both private and public.

However, while many schools resumed school activities a few months later, some in the insecurity-ridden areas remain shut down. The ICIR also gathered that some of the neighbouring villages’ schools are shut down.

Speaking with a school teacher, Abdulmeen Abdulazeez, highlights that the continuous attacks on schools in Nigeria have remained a big problem that deserves the utmost attention of both the federal and state governments.

“Insecurity over the last decade has been a serious threat to the Nigeria education system, particularly in the north. We have seen over five mass abductions of students from schools, while several teachers have been killed due to the onslaught.

“It’s very important to note that the Nigerian government needs to e proactive and make our schools safe for children. They need to find solution to the lingering insecurity and make sure children are returned back to schools.”

Safe School Initiative falters

The Safe Schools Initiative  (SSI) is a multi-donor programme aimed at promoting safety in Nigerian schools and rebuilding infrastructure, especially in the northern part of the country.

While the total amount raised for the project was not yet known, the project received over N100 billion in donations in 2014 and 2015. The Presidential Committee on North-East Intervention raised about N80 billion and, in the same year, received a donation of $1.5 million from Norway, $1 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB), $50,000 from the AfDB President and £1 million from the British government.

In 2015, Switzerland and the US pulled in $8 and $2 million, respectively, as well as Qatar ($2 million) and the Nigerian business community ($10 million). 

This was aside the N15 billion budgetary allocation by the Federal government in 2023.

However, according to a report by Save the Children, a charity organisation, over 1,680 students and teachers have been kidnapped from schools majorly in the North since 2014.

Also, analysis by The ICIR shows that over 1,000 students have been kidnapped within the past three administrations, with the abduction of school children generating millions in ransom for kidnappers.

Media sources collected by The ICIR detail at least 15 attacks across 10 northern states. Further findings also showed that Kaduna state has experienced more schoolchildren abductions than any other affected state in Nigeria that made it to mainstream media.

In 2023, the Committee on the SSI said it has begun the implementation of the project in 18 states, with the expectation that all the states will provide 48 states for the project. While Bauchi Gombe had identified the 48 schools, some states, including Kaduna, have not been reported to take off the project.

Mustapha USMAN

Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: umustapha@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M