‘Nigeria Has Failed To Protect Its Schoolchildren,’ US Senator Jim Risch Decries

United States Senator Jim Risch has criticised the Nigerian government for failing to protect schoolchildren from jihadist and criminal abductions.

Risch’s remarks followed recent attacks and kidnappings in Nigeria. On Monday, gunmen stormed Government Girls Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State, abducting 25 female students.

The school’s vice principal, Hassan Makuku, was killed, while a security guard Ali Shehu, sustained a gunshot injury to his right hand.

In a post on X, the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said students, particularly schoolgirls, remain at heightened risk of “enslavement, conversion, and ransom.”
“Nigeria has long failed to protect its schoolchildren from jihadist and criminal abductions, and little has changed,” he wrote.

“As the U.S. engages the Nigerian government on the persecution of its most vulnerable citizens, we will continue to hold them accountable.”

According to the spokesperson for the Kebbi Police Command, Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi, the assailants were “armed with sophisticated weapons.”

President Bola Tinubu confirmed that the kidnapping occurred despite prior “intelligence warnings of a possible attack by bandits.”

He decried the security breach and urged communities, especially in high-risk areas, to share timely information with the military, police, and the Department of State Services (DSS).