The Senate has condemned in the strongest terms the abduction of at least 25 students from Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS), Maga, in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State, following a deadly attack by armed gunmen that left several injured and a school official reportedly killed.
The senator who moved the motion Tuesday, while interfacing with journalists, confirmed the tragic incident and expressed deep frustration over the government’s failure to secure lives and property. Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, representing Kebbi North Senatorial District, warned that any government unable to protect its citizens has effectively lost its legitimacy.
“The first thing that a state or a government should do is provide you security,” Senator Abdullahi said. “If we who are legislators and those in government cannot secure the people of this country, let us abdicate. Let there be fresh elections for people who can take over.”
He said the Kebbi State Government had confirmed that the attackers killed a school official referred to as the vice principal and abducted numerous schoolgirls. He noted that while he awaited fuller briefings, the situation remained “dire and unacceptable.”
Senator Abdullahi added that the Senate had called on the federal government and security agencies to launch an immediate rescue operation and ensure the perpetrators are captured and prosecuted, even as the military and police remain overstretched.
He also disclosed that the Senate would probe the Safe School Initiative to determine how much was raised, how it was spent, and why the programme has repeatedly failed to protect schools from attacks.
The Senator cautioned the public against framing the incident along ethnic or religious lines, emphasising that criminals do not discriminate. “When bandits come, they do not ask whether you are Christian or Muslim,” he said. “They kill, steal and abduct. Instead of uniting to fight them, we are dividing ourselves along dangerous lines.”
He raised concerns over the chronic shortage of security manpower in rural areas, noting that many local governments in Kebbi have fewer than 100 policemen serving populations of nearly a million.
On calls for foreign military intervention, Senator Abdullahi emphatically rejected the idea, insisting that no nation can claim sovereignty if it cannot defend its own people.
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“Any nation that cannot protect its young is a nation without a future,” he said. “Even animals instinctively protect their children. Yet, here we are, allowing bandits to terrorize our children while we remain divided.”
Meanwhile, the Senate resolved to urge the federal government to recruit at least one hundred thousand new personnel into the Nigerian Armed Forces to strengthen the fight against insecurity, particularly in the northern states. It also resolved to set up a committee to investigate the Safe-School Initiative, including funds raised, implementation efforts, and reasons for its failure to protect vulnerable schools.
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