Today, I read that the students and teachers who were abducted from schools in Oyo State, Nigeria, have finally regained their freedom after spending more than 50 days in captivity. My first reaction was relief. They are alive. Their families can finally embrace them again. For that alone, I am genuinely grateful.
But after the relief came something else.
Anger.
Partly because this is becoming a norm in Nigeria, and partly because this particular one is so personal to me - one of the villages where these children were kidnapped from, is my village. There was also a circulated video online, of a man slaughtered (such a horrible scene) during their time in kidnapper's den - said to have been posted online by the evildoers. This makes it so likely that one or two persons among the victims did not make it back alive.
What kind of country have we become when children cannot go to school without the fear of being kidnapped?
How did we get to a point where teachers—people whose job is simply to educate the next generation—have to wonder whether they will return home alive after work?
For more than seven weeks, families lived in fear. Parents woke up every morning not knowing if their children were still alive. Communities waited, prayed, protested, and hoped. Meanwhile, classrooms became symbols of fear instead of places of learning.
Yes, they have been rescued, and I sincerely appreciate every security officer who risked their lives to make that happen. They deserve recognition for bringing these innocent people home.
But rescue should never become our standard for success.
The real victory is preventing innocent children from being abducted in the first place.
Every time an incident like this happens, we celebrate the rescue—and rightly so—but we rarely stop to ask the harder questions.
Why are schools becoming targets?
Why do parents have to choose between educating their children and keeping them safe?
How many more communities must live in fear before lasting solutions are found?
No child should associate education with trauma.
No teacher should need courage simply to show up for work.
As a Nigerian, this hurts deeply. Not because this happened in one state, but because it reminds us how easily any community could become the next headline.
Today I'm thankful that these students and teachers are free.
At the same time, I'm angry that they ever had to endure such an ordeal.
May this be one of the last times we have to celebrate children returning from captivity instead of celebrating them returning home from an ordinary day at school.
Are we doing enough to protect our schools, or have we started accepting the unacceptable?
Where has Nigeria gotten it wrong?!
How can we set things right?!!!!
