For the past week, I have been watching videos and reading reports about the recent schoolchildren kidnappings in Nigeria, and one question has refused to leave my mind: what exactly is the issue?
Because if we are honest, this did not start today. It takes us back to the night of 14–15 April 2014, when 276 girls were taken from Chibok. I remember where I was that day—sitting in a hotel room in Changsha, China, watching the news unfold. Later, I had dinner with friends from different countries, and a lady from Nepal asked me something I will never forget: “Does your government not protect schools?” I replied: “How?” But that question has haunted me ever since.
Because in many parts of the world, schools are protected by default. Here, we are still trying to make protection even exist.
And now, twelve years later, we are still here.
Chibok. Dapchi. Kankara. Kagara. Jangebe. Afaka. Kuriga. The list keeps growing. The faces change. The states change. But the story feels the same.
Children go to school. Armed men arrive. Families are broken. Communities are traumatized. Then we enter the familiar cycle: visits, statements, promises… and silence.
Then it happens again.
At some point, we must ask the uncomfortable question: are we reacting to tragedy—or accepting it as a pattern?
Because it is hard to understand how schools remain this exposed in 2026.
We can declare political issues emergencies. We can remove subsidies as emergencies. We can introduce taxes as emergencies. We can even track citizens online and act quickly when voices rise in anger. But when armed groups move freely and abduct schoolchildren, the urgency somehow slows down.
That contradiction is impossible to ignore.
If systems are strong enough to monitor citizens, they should be strong enough to protect them. If intelligence can detect dissent, it should be able to detect danger before it reaches classrooms.
So here is the question I cannot stop asking:
Why are Nigerian schools still unguarded in vulnerable areas in 2026?
We don’t need another speech.
We don’t need another delegation.
We don’t need another “we are on top of the situation.”
We need permanent security structures in schools located in vulnerable and high-risk areas. Real protection. Visible protection. Continuous protection.
Because education should not feel like courage. It should feel like safety.
And maybe the most painful truth is this: we are beginning to normalize what should have ended years ago.
So I will ask again, not as politics, but as pain:
How many more children must be taken before we decide enough is enough?
And I really want to hear Nigerians answer this honestly—because silence is no longer neutral.
It is part of the problem.
