northern Nigeria - The African Mirror

Apr

2024

By BUKOLA ADEBAYO and NOAH ANTHONY ENAHORO

Girls suffer most as Nigeria kidnap scourge hits school attendance

A kidnapping crisis in northern Nigeria is costing girls an education as parents choose safety over school a decade since the mass abduction of 276 female students in the town of Chibok caused global outrage. Jihadist group Boko Haram carried out the 2014 Chibok raid, but since then hundreds of children have been seized by criminal gangs using the same tactic of mass school kidnappings to seek ransom payments from parents. For some families, sending their children to school is a risk they cannot take. "We now have a situation where children are starting to choose between going to school and staying…

Nov

2022

By The African Mirror

Catholic priest kidnapped in northern Nigeria, diocese says

NEWS

A Nigerian priest was kidnapped from his home in northern Kaduna state, the local Roman Catholic diocese said in a statement on Tuesday, in the first such reported abduction of a clergyman in the state since July. Armed gangs are rife across northern Nigeria where they rob or kidnap for ransom, and violence has been increasing, where thinly stretched security forces often fail to stop the attacks. Father Christian Okewu Emmanuel, the chancellor of Kaduna Catholic diocese, said Reverend Father Abraham Kunat, a parish priest in Idon Gida village, was abducted from a home he was staying in another town,…

Aug

2021

By The African Mirror

Teenage girls Nigeria ‘open their minds’ with robotics

NEWS

SEUN SANNI and NNEKA CHILE TEENAGE girls in the northern Nigerian city of Kano are learning robotics, computing and other STEM subjects as part of an innovative project that challenges local views of what girls should be doing in a socially conservative Muslim society. In a place where girls are expected to marry young and their education is often cut short, the Kabara NGO aims to widen their worldview through activities such as building machines, using common software programmes and learning about maths and science. "I came to Kabara to learn robotics and I have created a lot of things,"…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Kidnappers release 28 pupils, 81 still held

NEWS

KIDNAPPERS who raided a boarding school in northern Nigeria earlier this month released 28 children on Sunday but another 81 remain in captivity, according to a pastor involved in the negotiations for their release. The attack on the Bethel Baptist High School in the state of Kaduna was the 10th mass school kidnapping since December in northwest Nigeria, which authorities have attributed to criminal gangs seeking ransom payments. A first batch of 28 children was released two days after the raid. Parents told Reuters that 180 students typically attend the school, and that pupils were in the process of sitting…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

One killed, 10 kidnapped in Nigerian school raid

NEWS

GARBA MUHAMMAD ONE student was killed and at least 10 people were kidnapped when gunmen raided a school in northern Nigeria, officials have told Reuters. The gunmen attacked the main campus of the Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic in Zaria, Kaduna state, shooting sporadically and abducting two lecturers and eight students, according to Samuel Aruwan, the state's commissioner of internal security. Two students were shot, one fatally, while the other was being treated in hospital, Aruwan said. Aliyu Kofa, chairman of the school's chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), said two lecturers and about 10 students were kidnapped. He…