Human shields don't vote in elections

Coordinated attacks in Borno and Oyo abduct over 100 pupils, as troops kill 175 IS militants with US support.

Nigeria is facing renewed security challenges after coordinated attacks in Borno and Oyo states led to the abduction of more than 100 pupils, students and school staff. In Oyo, gunmen attacked schools in Oriire Local Government Area, killing two people and kidnapping several victims, including a vice principal. In Borno, over 50 young children were abducted from schools in Mussa town, with attackers reportedly using them as human shields while fleeing. Meanwhile, Nigerian troops, supported by the United States military, said they killed 175 Islamic State militants in northeast Nigeria during joint air and ground operations targeting ISWAP commanders, weapons depots and financing networks.

The abduction in Borno was carried out by the JAS faction of Boko Haram. This group has shifted heavily towards soft targets such as schools because it needs money and fighters to survive its long rivalry with ISWAP. JAS, even with its resurgence against hard targets last year, still does not have the sustaining capacity for big military confrontations in many areas, so it strikes schools when troops pull back, takes children as human shields, and uses them for ransom or forced recruitment. This shows how weakened but still dangerous the faction remains.

In Oyo, the attacks suggest that bandit groups are expanding from the Kwara forest corridors into the southwest. These are criminal networks, sometimes working with militant herder elements, that have seen the security vacuum in southern Nigeria and moved in for quick ransom money. The manner of attack, abduction and the subsequent killing of a captive teacher shows how northwest banditry has spread far beyond its original region and is rapidly creeping into poorly policed areas, exacerbated by the failure of the Amotekun initiative to live up to the billing.

Furthermore, these incidents reveal the complete failure of the Safe Schools Initiative. More than ten years after Chibok, the programme exists mostly on paper. Many schools still lack basic fencing, guards, or early warning systems. State governments have not taken it seriously, and federal coordination remains poor. The fact that both the Northeast and the Southwest were hit in the same week proves that insecurity has become a nationwide problem that current strategies cannot contain, and that the same failure of security measures in the Southwest is evident in the Northeast.

The military’s claim of killing 175 ISWAP fighters in joint operations with the US should be viewed with serious scepticism. It hardly holds up to scrutiny that a military that has been on the defensive against ISWAP, raking in loss after loss, would post such numbers so soon. Similar claims in past years were later quietly revised or could not be independently verified. These big numbers often appear when public pressure increases over repeated failures, especially after high-profile abductions. They serve more as damage control and morale-boosting than as accurate battlefield reporting. Even if a significant number of fighters were actually killed, including the loss of a commander like Al Mainok, the impact on the ground will likely be limited.

Both JAS and ISWAP have proven extremely resilient, having replaced killed leaders many times and continuing to adapt. Without consistent pressure on their financing networks, island sanctuaries in Lake Chad and recruitment pipelines, these groups recover fast. Temporary setbacks rarely translate into lasting degradation. The bigger picture is worrying. Nigeria now faces multiple overlapping security threats, jihadist factions in the northeast, spreading banditry in the northwest and southwest, and a weak state response across the board. The Safe Schools Initiative was meant to protect children, but has become another example of grand promises with little delivery. Until the government fixes the deep coordination failures between security agencies and addresses the root causes driving young men into these groups, these cycles of abduction and inflated success claims will continue.