Nigeria’s president announced that all 24 schoolgirls taken in a mass abduction from a girls’ secondary school in Kebbi state have been rescued. Twenty‑five pupils were seized on 17 November from the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga town; one girl escaped the same day, the school principal said. The remaining 24 were recovered, though officials gave no details about how the rescue was carried out.
President Bola Tinubu said he was relieved that the girls had been accounted for and urged that more security personnel be deployed to vulnerable areas to prevent further kidnappings.
The attack in Kebbi is one of several recent mass abductions across Nigeria. On the previous Friday, more than 300 students and staff were taken in a raid on St Mary’s school in Niger state; roughly 50 students escaped over the weekend. Authorities and local school officials have said the rescued Kebbi pupils remain in official custody, but provided no immediate information on their medical or emotional condition.
Musa Rabi Magaji, principal of the largely Muslim school in Maga, told the Associated Press that all the girls had been released and were now with authorities. A parent, Abdulkarim Abdullahi, whose daughters aged 12 and 13 were among those taken, said officials told him the girls were being brought to the state capital, Birnin Kebbi. He described relief at the news but said the family would wait for government confirmation about their wellbeing.
Separately, Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara state said 38 worshippers who had been kidnapped during a deadly attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Eruku on 18 November have also been freed; that attack left two people dead.
No group has claimed responsibility for the recent abductions. Security analysts and residents say armed gangs and bandits frequently target schools, travellers and remote communities to seize people for ransom, exploiting areas with limited government presence. Many of these groups are believed to include former herders who turned to crime after violent clashes over scarce resources.
School kidnappings have become a defining feature of insecurity in Africa’s most populous country. At least 1,500 students have been seized since the Chibok abductions more than a decade ago, and many have only been released after ransoms were paid. The wave of kidnappings has coincided with public claims by the US president, Donald Trump, that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria, though analysts note attacks have affected both Christian and Muslim communities. Arrests of perpetrators remain uncommon and ransom payments continue to be reported in many northern hotspots.