Timeline Of Mass Abductions In Nigerian Schools Since 2014

The unprecedented spike in abductions, perpetrated by bandits and terrorist organisations across Nigeria, particularly within the Northern states, constitutes a severe threat to the nation’s security architecture, generating widespread national panic.

With insurgent groups targeting weak spots or gatherings with less or no security personnel, particularly schools, religious gatherings, and farming areas, several Nigerians have lost their lives while others remain in captivity as security agencies work tirelessly to secure their releases.

This report by TVC News outlines the timeline of school abductions perpetrated by insurgent groups since 2014.

It is no news that major bandits and insurgent groups like Boko Haram and the ISWAP often target vulnerable gatherings to carry out attacks, with secondary schools garnering a disturbing number of attacks, though the specific reasons and motives behind these school attacks have yet to be fully identified.

The two most recent attacks on schools were carried out in Kebbi State, where 25 students were abducted, and in Niger State, where over 300 students were abducted.

Kebbi State

On November 17, 2025, an armed group attacked the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga town, Kebbi State, Nigeria. The assailants abducted 25 female students and killed two staff members, including the Vice Principal, Mallam Hassan Yakubu Makuku, during the raid. 

Following the attack, the Kebbi State Governor, Mohammed Nasir Idris, condemned security agencies for allegedly ignoring intelligence that could have prevented the deadly attack.

It was reported that troops of the Nigerian Army allegedly visited the school upon receiving active intelligence of an imminent abduction, but the assailants attacked the school immediately after the troops were withdrawn a moment before the attack.

Niger State

On Friday, November 21, 2025 armed bandits stormed St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Agwara Local Government Area of Niger State, abducting students and teachers.

In a memo titled “Attack and kidnapping of pupils, students and teachers of St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools, Papiri”, signed by Diocesan Secretary Jatau Luka Joseph, it was revealed that a security personnel was also seriously injured during the attack.

During the attack, over 300 students and some teachers were reportedly abducted.

On Sunday, November 23, 50 student were confirmed to escape from the grip of their abductors.

Dapchi Abduction

As it is with Kebbi State, it has been with several states across regions with a notable unsolved kidnapping of Leah Sharibu who was kidnapped alongside her colleagues on February 19, 2018, at 5:30 pm, where 110 schoolgirls aged 11–19 years old were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from the Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC) in Dapchi.

Dapchi is located in Bulabulin, Bursari Local Government Area of Yobe State, in the northeast part of Nigeria.

After the insurgent attack, the federal government of Nigeria deployed the Nigerian Air Force and other security agencies to search for the missing schoolgirls and to hopefully enable their return.

A claim which resulted in a back and forth between the Governor, the State Police Command and the Nigerian Army.

The army claimed that it had withdrawn its forces from the town due to the absence of evidence of any Boko Haram activity in the general vicinity and that, at the time, it had formally handed over Dapchi’s security to the police before its withdrawal.

The Yobe state police commissioner strongly denied the army’s claim that his department had been formally informed by the army of the army’s withdrawal, and no proof of any such police notification was provided by the army.

Dapchi lies approximately 275 km (170 miles) northwest of Chibok, where over 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.

Kagara Abduction

On 17 February 2021, no fewer than 42 people, including 27 students, were kidnapped when bandits attacked Government Science Secondary School, Kagara, in Niger State.

The Niger Commissioner of Information and Strategy, Muhammad Idris, who made this known, also said the whereabouts of three teachers are unknown.

According to him, 12 family members of the teachers were also abducted during the attack.

According to a source, the gunmen raided the Government Science College in Kagara district of Niger state at around 2 am.

The former President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria ordered the police and the military to conduct a rescue operation.

On 19 February, the governor of the Niger State, Abubakar Sani-Bello, confirmed that the state government was in the final stages of negotiations with the bandits for the release of the abductees.

On 21 February, a military plane on its way to Minna to try to rescue the 42 hostages crashed, killing all seven people on board. The Chief of Air Staff ordered an immediate investigation to determine the cause of the crash.

On 27 February 2021, the government of Niger State announced that all the 42 people abducted from the Kagara school had been released by the bandits and received by the Niger state government.

Kankara kidnapping

In the evening of 11 December 2020, over 300 pupils were kidnapped from a boys’ secondary boarding school on the outskirts of Kankara, Katsina State.

A gang of gunmen on motorcycles stormed the premises of the Government Science Secondary School, reportedly housing over 800 students.

On 12 December, the armed forces said they found the gang’s hideout in a forest and exchanged gunfire with them.

On 14 December, Katsina’s governor, Aminu Bello Masari, told BBC News that the kidnappers had contacted the government and negotiations were ongoing for the release of the students, refuting claims that the abduction was carried out by Boko Haram terrorists.

On Thursday 17th of December, 344 of the victims were freed from where they were being held in a wood in neighbouring Zamfara State.

Chibok School Girls Kidnapping

On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 schoolgirls within the 16 to 18 age range were kidnapped by the most notorious Nigerian militant group, Boko Haram, from the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State.

According to an unconfirmed report on Wikipedia, before the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance to take final exams in physics.

According to Daily Trust, parents of the 87 Chibok school girls still in captivity have called on the Nigerian government to “move beyond rhetoric” and return their children home.

During the national outcry over the missing girls, the viral #BringBackOurGirls campaign was launched, which brought the insecurity in the North East to international attention.

Jangebe Kidnap

The Zamfara kidnapping (or Jangebe kidnapping) was the abduction of 279 female students aged between 10 and 17 during a raid by armed bandits on 26 February 2021. The kidnapping occurred at the Government Girls Science Secondary School, a boarding school in Jangebe, in Zamfara State, Nigeria.

All hostages were released by the bandits on 2 March 2021, though claims vary as to the negotiation methods used by the Nigerian government in order to facilitate their release.

The incident was Nigeria’s second school kidnapping in February 2021 and the third within three months, claiming 633 victims in total. The incident took place nine days after the Kagara kidnapping, when at least 42 hostages were taken from a school in Niger State.  In December 2020, kidnappers abducted 344 schoolboys in Katsina State.

Tegina

Terrorists on Sunday, May 30, kidnapped an unspecified number of students of an Islamic school in Niger State, North-central Nigeria, barely three months after the infamous mass abduction of  Kagara schoolboys, a government official said.

Abdullberqy Ebbo, the Director-General, Strategic Operation Unit, ICT and Public Enlightenment, Niger State Government, announced the latest abduction on Twitter, adding that the government was on top of the situation.

According to a report by Channels Television, at least 200 students of Salihu Tanko Islamiyya school located at Tegina in Rafi Local Government Area of the state were taken into captivity by terrorists.

In the report, quoting one Zayyad Mohammed, one person was shot dead while another sustained critical injury during the attack carried out at about 4:30 p.m. WAT on Sunday.

Salihu Tanko Islamiyya school is the second of its kind to have experienced a similar kidnap case.

Kaduna Kuriga

On 7 March 2024, more than 200 Nigerian school students were abducted from their educational institution in the north-western town of Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna State. The event occurred while the pupils were gathered on the assembly ground around 08:30 (07:30 GMT). A group of dozens of gunmen riding motorcycles infiltrated the school premises.

 It was alleged that Bakura Doro’s Boko Haram faction had been involved in the kidnapping.