From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja and Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
The Kogi State Government has launched a massive multi-agency security operation to rescue four persons abducted from Government Secondary School (GSS), Olowa, in Dekina Local Government Area during the ongoing National Examinations Council (NECO) examinations.
A statement by the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Kingsley Fanwo, said the operation was ordered by Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo and is being coordinated by the State Security Adviser, Commander Jerry Omodara (rtd), with the participation of all security and intelligence agencies operating in the state.
The victims are the principal of Government Secondary School, Olowa, Elder Daniel Iyanaa; a NECO official, Mr. Solomon Audu; and two NECO candidates, one identified as Miss Dorcas Sunday and the other simply as Miss Dorcas, whose surname has yet to be confirmed.
According to the state government, five persons were initially abducted by the gunmen, but one has since been rescued. Security agencies have intensified efforts to secure the release of the remaining four.
Personnel of the 12 Brigade of the Nigerian Army, Lokoja; the 21 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Anyigba; the Nigeria Police Force; the Department of State Services (DSS); the Kogi State Vigilante Service; local hunters; and other security outfits have been deployed to the area. The government added that advanced technology is also being deployed to support the operation.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the abduction of the school principal, a NECO ad hoc official and students sitting for the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE), describing the incident as further evidence of the country’s worsening security situation.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said the incident demonstrated the failure of the Nigerian state to fulfil its primary responsibility of protecting lives, education and the future of its children.
He said the Kogi incident was not an isolated tragedy but part of a disturbing national trend in which educational institutions had become easy targets because criminals no longer feared the consequences of their actions.
“It is both tragic and disgraceful that in today’s Nigeria, children can no longer write public examinations without the terrifying prospect of being marched into the forest by armed criminals.
“An examination hall should be a sanctuary of hope, not a crime scene. A school principal should be preparing students for the future, not negotiating with kidnappers. A NECO official should be supervising examinations, not struggling for survival in the hands of bandits. Yet this has become the grim reality under a government that has normalised insecurity.
“It is impossible to separate this attack from the attitude this administration has displayed towards education. A government that has repeatedly made education more expensive through unprecedented increases in WAEC and NECO examination fees, neglected public schools, failed to secure learning environments and reduced education to empty campaign slogans should not be surprised that criminals now see schools as abandoned territories.”
The former Vice President, who is also the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate for the 2027 election, said every successful attack on a school emboldened criminal groups and made educational institutions increasingly attractive targets.
“The bandits have become emboldened because they have watched a government that shows greater urgency for political campaigns than for protecting schools. They have seen a government that mobilises enormous state resources when politics is involved but struggles to provide effective security around educational institutions. Every successful kidnapping convinces another criminal gang that Nigerian schoolchildren are easy targets.
“The collapse of school security is not merely a security failure; it is a collapse of governance itself. A country where children cannot safely write examinations is a country steadily surrendering its future to fear.”
Atiku called for the immediate and unconditional rescue of all the abducted victims and urged the Federal Government to conduct a comprehensive review of security arrangements in schools and examination centres across the country.
He also called on the government to move beyond routine statements after attacks and implement measurable security reforms that would restore public confidence.
“History will not remember how many press releases this government issued after each abduction. History will remember whether it protected Nigeria’s children or abandoned them. No nation has ever developed by forcing its children to choose between education and survival.
“A government that devalues education inadvertently empowers those who seek to destroy it. When the state fails to defend its schools, bandits inevitably conclude that nobody else will.
“The children of Nigeria deserve books instead of bullets, classrooms instead of captivity, examinations instead of evacuation, and hope instead of horror. That is the minimum any responsible government owes its people.”
The ADC presidential candidate further argued that the country’s security challenges reflected what he described as the Tinubu administration’s failure to uphold accountability and discipline in public finance.
“A national budget is not a political souvenir or a personal wish list; it is a solemn statement of priorities that aligns public expenditure with the needs of the people.
“The same budget that mysteriously accommodates billions of naira for items that defy logic cannot adequately secure the classrooms where Nigeria’s children are supposed to learn. That is how governments create the vacuum that criminals exploit.”
