By Desire Emmanuel
Former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, on Monday, November 24, gave a chilling statistics of abduction of students in Nigeria, saying available data reveals that over 2,496 students were abducted in 92 attacks between 2014 and 2025.
Ezekwesili disclosed this on her verified X handle while reacting to the spate of abduction of students in schools, especially in Kebbi and Niger states, saying the situation is worrisome.
According to her, the data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children Group revealed the startling figures, adding that she had often warned that the disregard for good governance would be the undoing of the country.
She wrote: “Failing to Protect Nigerian Children is the Highest Acceptance of Governing without Legitimacy, Mr President
“Connecting the dots can oftentimes be difficult for some people.
“Cancerous level systemic corruption that metastasized into our country’s political culture is totally imploding Nigeria.
“All our institutions including our once strong military and judiciary are now so terribly compromised and incapable of delivering on their mandate.
“Endemic corruption gradually ate up the very values on which they were founded and once functioned and rendered them the impotent institutions we now know.
“Oh, how often we warned that the disregard for good governance would be the undoing of our country.
“UNICEF and Save the Children data show more than 1,680 students abducted in 70 attacks between 2014 and 2022, with a further 816 students taken in 22 attacks just between 2023 and November 2025.
“After more than a decade of holding government accountable for the preventable atrocities committed against Nigeria’s school children, one has reached a point where outrage no longer feels adequate and repetition feels like an insult to the memory of the lost.
“The latest group of abducted children are not just hostages of terrorists; they are hostages of the unforgivable failure of governments and political class that refuse to be moved, and to a people whose empathy has been steadily eroded.
“The children’s abductions are not “incidents.” They are proof of state collapse in its most basic duty- the protection of our greatest human asset- our children.
“After ten years since Chibok Girls, the government of Nigeria has forfeited any claim to ignorance, surprise, or learning curve.
“What we have is deliberate negligence, and deliberate negligence is a crime.
“Let it be known that to continue to govern without rescuing all our abducted children and protecting the rest in their schools is the highest acceptance of the President of Nigeria that he governs without Legitimacy. Enough said.”
