…From Chibok to Oyo: When childhood is stolen, empty classrooms and Nigeria’s stolen generation
…A nation that cannot find its children leads to slow death of childhood
As kidnappings, terrorism and political indifference deepen, millions of Nigerian children are growing up in fear rather than hope.
The greatest tragedy is not only that children are being abducted. It is that the nation is beginning to accept it as normal.
A country that cannot protect its children is mortgaging its future. There are wounds a nation should never learn to live with. The disappearance of its children is one of them.
Yet in Nigeria today, there is a growing and frightening sense that we are becoming accustomed to tragedy. We mourn, we protest, we trend on social media, we pray, and then we move on—until the next abduction, the next attack, the next classroom emptied by fear.
Somewhere tonight, a mother is staring into darkness, wondering if her child is alive.
Somewhere tonight, a father is unable to sleep because the son or daughter he sent to school has not returned home.
Somewhere tonight, a child is crying in captivity, far away from family, comfort, and safety, asking a question no child should ever have to ask:
“Will anybody come for me?”
For more than a decade, Nigeria has watched as schools…places meant for learning, dreams, and hope…have increasingly become symbols of terror.
The tragedy did not begin yesterday.
The world remembers Chibok.
On the night of April 14, 2014, 276 schoolgirls were abducted from their dormitories in Chibok, Borno State, by Boko Haram terrorists. The global campaign “#BringBackOurGirls” brought unprecedented international attention to Nigeria. Yet more than a decade later, some of those girls remain unaccounted for. Their families continue to wait, suspended between hope and grief.
The world remembers Dapchi.
In February 2018, scores of schoolgirls were abducted again. One of them, Leah Sharibu, remains in captivity because she reportedly refused to renounce her faith.
The world remembers Kankara, Jangebe, Tegina, Greenfield University, Kuriga, and many others.
But remembrance has not stopped repetition.
According to UNICEF, more than 1,680 children have been abducted in conflict-related violence over the last decade, alongside dozens of teachers and school staff. More than 70 attacks on schools have been recorded, with children and educators killed, kidnapped, or permanently traumatised.
And still, the nightmare continues.
Recently, the nation was confronted with another heartbreaking reality in Oyo State, where children, teachers, and caregivers were reportedly abducted. Among those taken was a two-year-old child—an age when a child should be learning first words, not the language of fear. Reports indicate that some victims remain in captivity while families continue to wait for answers.
What kind of country allows a toddler to become a hostage?
What kind of society reaches a point where the abduction of schoolchildren no longer generates the sustained national outrage it deserves?
Perhaps the most disturbing development is not the kidnappings themselves.
It is our growing ability to live with them.
The abnormal is becoming normal.
The unimaginable is becoming routine.
The unacceptable is becoming tolerated.
This is how nations lose their moral compass—not suddenly, but gradually.
Each time a child disappears and the country moves on too quickly, a little more of our collective conscience disappears with that child.
Each time politicians devote more energy to elections, political defections, coalition-building, propaganda, and power struggles than to rescuing kidnapped children, a dangerous message is sent:
Politics matters more than people.
Power matters more than protection.
Tomorrow can wait.
But tomorrow cannot wait.
Because the children being kidnapped today are the doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, innovators, and leaders Nigeria desperately needs tomorrow.
A nation that cannot protect its children is not merely facing a security crisis.
It is facing a future crisis!
Education is the foundation of national development. Yet across parts of Nigeria, schools are increasingly associated with fear rather than opportunity. Some states have periodically shut schools because of security threats. Parents who should be encouraging attendance are instead wondering whether sending a child to school is an unacceptable risk.
The consequences are devastating: Children learn less. Enrolment falls. Girls are withdrawn from school. Communities lose confidence in public education. Teachers flee unsafe areas.
Entire generations become vulnerable to poverty, exploitation, and extremism.
UNICEF estimates that Nigeria already has one of the world’s largest populations of out-of-school children, with over 18 million children affected across primary and junior secondary levels. Insecurity has significantly worsened this crisis.
This raises a painful question.
Are those who seek to destroy education winning?
Boko Haram is often translated as opposition to Western education. Whether linguistically precise or not, its violent campaign against schools has become unmistakably clear. The targeting of classrooms, teachers, and students is not random. It is strategic.
The goal is fear.
The goal is disruption.
The goal is ignorance.
The goal is to convince families that education is too dangerous to pursue.
And whenever a school closes because of insecurity, whenever a child abandons education out of fear, whenever a parent decides it is safer to keep a daughter at home, the enemies of education score another victory.
Yet this crisis cannot be blamed solely on terrorists, bandits, or kidnappers.
It is also a test of governance.
It is a test of leadership.
It is a test of national priorities.
If schools can be repeatedly attacked over many years, if children can repeatedly disappear from classrooms, if communities continue to plead for protection while insecurity spreads, then difficult questions must be asked about preparedness, intelligence gathering, accountability, emergency response systems, and political commitment.
The issue is no longer whether enough warnings have been given.
The warnings have been screaming at us for years.
What, then, must be done?
First, school security must become a national emergency priority rather than an occasional talking point.
Second, the Safe Schools Initiative and related protection frameworks must receive adequate funding, monitoring, and implementation.
Third, intelligence gathering and rapid-response capabilities must be dramatically strengthened around vulnerable communities.
Fourth, technology, surveillance systems, and early-warning mechanisms should be expanded nationwide. UNICEF reports that only about 37 percent of schools across 10 assessed states currently have early-warning systems to identify threats. That is dangerously inadequate.
Fifth, rescued victims and affected families need long-term psychological support, rehabilitation, and educational reintegration.
Sixth, politicians across party lines must recognise that protecting children is not a partisan issue. It is a national duty.
Finally, Nigerians themselves must refuse to normalise the disappearance of children.
A society begins to decline when it stops being shocked by injustice.
We must not become comfortable with empty desks.
We must not become comfortable with missing pupils.
We must not become comfortable with grieving parents.
We must not become comfortable with stolen childhoods.
History will judge our generation not by the number of elections conducted, political alliances formed, or campaign slogans shouted.
History will judge us by whether we protected the most vulnerable among us.
The true measure of a nation is not found in the wealth of its elites, the speeches of its politicians, or the size of its economy.
It is found in whether a child can walk into a classroom and return home safely.
Today, too many Nigerian children cannot do that.
And until they can, our national conscience should know no rest.
Because every child still in captivity is not merely someone’s son or daughter.
They are Nigeria’s future waiting to come home.
Beyond Nigeria: A Global Human Rights Emergency
The crisis facing Nigeria’s children is not merely a Nigerian problem. It is a global human rights concern.
Across the world, international conventions and agreements recognise education as a fundamental human right. The right of every child to learn in safety is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and numerous international frameworks to which Nigeria is a signatory. Schools are meant to be sanctuaries of learning, not theatres of fear. Classrooms should nurture dreams, not become targets for criminals, terrorists, and armed groups.
In many parts of the world, the safety of children in schools is so fundamental that a single attack on a school would trigger national outrage, parliamentary inquiries, emergency policy responses, and sustained international attention. In Nigeria, however, repeated attacks on schools have become distressingly familiar. What should be extraordinary has become routine. What should provoke national shock increasingly risks becoming another headline in an endless cycle of tragedy.
This is why the international community must not look away.
The abduction of schoolchildren is not only an attack on individual victims and their families. It is an assault on the universal principles of human dignity, education, childhood, and hope. Every child denied an education through violence represents a setback not only for Nigeria but also for global efforts to promote peace, development, gender equality, and human rights.
The world once stood with the girls of Chibok. It must not wait for another Chibok before paying attention again.
For if millions of children cannot safely access education in Africa’s most populous nation, the consequences will extend far beyond Nigeria’s borders. Educational exclusion, insecurity, poverty, displacement, and extremism are challenges that increasingly transcend national boundaries.
The protection of Nigerian children, therefore, is not simply a domestic obligation. It is part of a shared global responsibility to defend the principle that every child, regardless of birthplace, deserves the freedom to learn without fear.
For when a child is afraid to go to school, humanity itself has failed. And when the world becomes silent in the face of such suffering, that failure becomes collective.
References:
•UNICEF Nigeria reports on school attacks and the 10th anniversary of Chibok.
•UNICEF figures showing more than 1,680 children abducted and over 70 attacks on schools in the last decade.
•Reports on continuing school abductions, including recent incidents in Oyo and other states.
•Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA) findings on increasing attacks on education worldwide and Nigeria’s place among affected countries.
