Kebbi School Attack: VP Killed, More Than 25 Girls Abducted

They came before dawn, silent shadows that turned into thunder.

At exactly 5 a.m., armed men in military-style camouflage scaled the low fence of Maga Comprehensive Girls’ Secondary School in Danko-Wasagu Local Government Area like ghosts who already knew every corner of the compound.

Sporadic gunfire ripped through the morning quiet. Students screamed. And in the middle of the chaos stood one man who refused to run.

Hassan Yakubu Makuku, the school’s Vice Principal (Administration), placed himself between the gunmen and the girls’ hostel. He paid with his life.

Eyewitnesses say the terrorists shot him point-blank as he tried to buy time for the students to escape. A security guard was also critically injured.

By the time the smoke cleared, 25 girls – aged between 13 and 17 – had been marched into the surrounding forest at gunpoint.No resistance. No checkpoint.

No soldiers. Just five hours earlier, a detachment of the Nigerian Army stationed only 11 kilometres (7 miles) away had packed up and left the school premises – despite the community raising an alarm about credible intelligence of an imminent attack.

“The soldiers came, camped here for days, then said they were redeployed around midnight,” a teacher who begged not to be named told TheCityCeleb. “By 5 a.m., hell visited us.”

The raid has sent a cold shiver across Nigeria, echoing the darkest night in recent memory: April 14, 2014, when Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from Chibok, Borno State.

Eleven years later, in a different corner of the country – North-West, not North-East – the script feels painfully familiar, only the actors have multiplied. No group has claimed responsibility yet.

But in social media platforms, fingers are already pointing: Boko Haram splinters, Lakurawa jihadists, or the ever-morphing bandit syndicates now armed with RPGs and night-vision gear.

The federal government says rescue operations have begun. Many Nigerians are not holding their breath.

Omoyele Sowore, activist and perennial presidential candidate: “There is no leadership in this country. Full stop.”

Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President: “Another heartbreaking reminder of the worsening insecurity under this administration.”

Peter Obi, 2023 Labour Party flagbearer: “These are devastating, unacceptable losses. We cannot keep burying our children and our future.”

Meanwhile, a section of online commentators – the ever-patriotic, ever-conspiratorial – insist the timing is “too convenient,” a scripted distraction meant to embarrass President Bola Tinubu barely 48 hours after his return from an overseas trip.

But in Maga town, no one is debating conspiracy theories. Parents are wailing at the school gate. Empty dormitories stare back like accusing eyes. And somewhere in the vast Ribah forest, 25 girls are walking barefoot into an uncertain fate.

This is no longer just a Kebbi problem. This is Nigeria, 2025 – where the past never really left; it just changed uniforms.