Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has called on Tinubu’s Government to immediately declare a state of emergency on insecurity following yet another mass abduction of schoolchildren in Niger State.
Reacting to Friday’s attack on St. Mary’s Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Agwara Local Government Area, Atiku warned that the escalating wave of kidnappings across the country required urgent and extraordinary intervention.
“Not again. This is truly heartbreaking,” he wrote on X.
“How many more lives must be shattered before decisive action is taken? It is not too late for the government to finally declare a state of emergency on insecurity and confront this menace with the urgency it deserves,” he added.
Terrorists were said to have stormed the Catholic-owned school in the early hours of Friday, arriving in large numbers on more than 60 motorcycles, accompanied by a van, before whisking away an unspecified number of pupils.
The Niger attack is the latest in a rising trend of school kidnappings. It comes less than a week after bandits abducted 25 students from Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State, an incident that claimed the life of Vice-Principal Hassan Makuku, who attempted to resist the gunmen.
It also follows the abduction of at least 30 worshippers during a deadly attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku, Kwara State, where three people were killed.