SPECIAL REPORT: Four Years After Mass Abduction: Jangebe students battle for education, hope

Sadiya Lawal lifted her one-year-old son, his small body squirming as he cried. She gently ignored his protests and placed him in her sister’s arms, offering a brief, apologetic glance before turning away.
She moved with deliberate steps, her pace slow and steady, as if every movement carried the weight of the past. Settling on a mat on the floor, she flipped the niqab over her head as she prepared to share her story – one that had altered the course of her life.

“It was a few days after we resumed school,” she began, her gaze shifting away as memories of that night resurfaced – the night her life flashed before her.

When they came

It was Thursday, 25 February 2021, and the lives of Mrs Lawal, now 21, and about 300 girls were about to change, although none of them could have predicted it. Their school, the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Jangebe, Zamfara State, had just resumed another school term after a long COVID-19 lockdown-induced holiday.

Many students had yet to return, but the chatter of those in school filled the dormitories as the students defied light out to chat with friends.

About an hour after midnight, a different noise emerged at the school gate, about a kilometre from the student hostels. A group of Ak-47-carrying and motorcycle-riding bandits had approached the gate. One of them attempted to scale the fence but jumped down when he saw the school’s local security personnel carrying a Dane gun.

In the early hours of Friday, 26 February 2021, bandits stormed GGSS Jangebe and abducted close to 300 school girls. Picture: Qosim Suleiman

The security man knew he could not overpower the bandits and fled. The bandit scaled the fence successfully the second time and opened the side gate for his colleagues, giving them unrestrained access to the school premises.

Their first stop was the students’ hostels, where the students had lulled themselves to sleep. The bandits walked into the hostel lobby, flashed torches through the windows, and barked orders for the students to step out.

Amsau Yusuf said she thought one of their teachers was trying to wake them for the Subh (morning) prayers.
“Wake up now, or I’ll kill you,” Ms Yusuf recalled one of the bandits shouting. “We were trying to hide, and they pointed guns at us. We started crying, and they herded us like cattle.”

The bandits led some of the girls to identify the staff in the building, but they didn’t find anyone. The only staff member living on campus, Anas Yushau, hid in his bedroom, scared as the drama unfolded.
Shortly after, the bandits led the students – about 300 of them – along thorny paths for hours before they settled somewhere in the forest.

Abandoned hostels at GGSS Jangebe. Picture: Qosim Suleiman

An unforgettable night

Jangebe, a little-known community, became famous as local and international media platforms broke the news the next morning of another mass abduction of students — the third in three months. Naturally, parents were distraught as the government scampered to save the students amid immense public pressure.

Three months earlier, in December 2020, bandits had abducted over 300 boys at the Government Boys Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State. They were released seven days later.

On 17 February 2021, another group of bandits stormed the Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State, abducting 42 students and staff members.

Exactly a week later, the students were released and taken first to the Government House in Gusau for a medical check-up before being returned to their parents. The government also shut down the school.

In the case of the Jangebe school, the tragic incident marked the last time many of the students saw some of their classmates. It also marked the beginning of a series of events that altered the course of some students’ lives.

In January, PREMIUM TIMES compiled a list of 104 students and interviewed about a dozen of them, their parents, and GGSS Jangebe staff members. It was found that most of the students, now living in different communities, had put that incident behind them and forged ahead.

While some are attending different secondary schools, others are in tertiary institutions. However, some have not been able to continue their education in the aftermath of the incident.

‘A lot changed’

After returning from the bandits’ captivity, Mrs Lawal remained at home in Anka for some months before she and other girls were asked to continue their education at the Government Girls Day Secondary School (GGDSS), Anka. But she couldn’t cope in school.

“A lot changed when we came back,” she said. “Just the nature of schooling here is not the same. I prefer it there (GGSS Jangebe).”

Though she was then in SS 1 and would have sat for the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) by 2024, she dropped out and married in December 2022.

When she narrated this story in January, four years after the incident, her life had changed drastically. She was no longer a girl – she was now a secondary school dropout, a wife, and the mother of an 11-month-old son, a choice she said felt okay at the time.

Fatima Musa, 18, also enrolled at GGDSS Anka and sat the WASSCE in 2024. However, she hasn’t considered further education or even checked her examination results.

“When we wrote (WASSCE), there’s no money to say I’ll apply for admission or anything. That’s why,” she said.

Twenty of the 104 students whose details this newspaper compiled did not complete secondary school education.

Insecurity and Education

In the last decade, insecurity in Northern Nigeria has affected education, from the shutting of schools to the abduction of students.

Since the first recorded mass abduction of 276 girls at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, by Boko Haram terrorists in 2014, more than 1,700 students and teachers have been abducted in

Northern Nigeria, according to data compiled by SBM Intelligence.
As mass abduction of students reduced in Boko Haram’s stronghold in the North-east, it has grown in the North-west with the rise of banditry in rural communities, with Zamfara as the most affected state.
PREMIUM TIMES reported last year how years of insecurity and mass abductions in the region have crippled basic education and led to the closure of over 60 primary and secondary schools.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Nigeria has over 20 million out-of-school children, with the ‘degenerating security’ situation in the region described as a major driver.

Not all gloomy

However, some of the abducted GGSS Jangebe girls continued schooling and are excelling.
After her primary school in Anka, Aisha Nasir, now 17, enrolled at GGSS Jangebe in 2020. She was in JSS2 when they were abducted.

“I resumed on Sunday, and the abduction happened on Thursday,” she recalled.
While in captivity, Aisha, now 17, was one of the youngest and was responsible for fetching water while the older students cooked.

“They cook rice and beans. We fetch water, and they put our portion in a sack,” she said.

Aisha Nasir grew wary of schooling after the abduction. Picture: Qosim Suleiman

When they returned, Miss Nasir said she didn’t think about going back to school because she “started getting disinterested.”

However, she was forced to re-enroll at GGDSS Anka. “Gradually, I started getting interested again,” she said.
Now, in SS3, she will sit the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) this year.

Some months after their return home, there was an announcement in Anka for all the girls from GGSS Jangebe to converge at a location close to the house of the district head. There, the students were advised not to lose hope in education because of what had happened to them.

“They told us it was fate, and it could’ve happened to anyone,” Firdausi Sani, one of the students, said.
But Ms Sani’s parents took her to a private school where she is now in SS1.

Beyond Secondary School

Farida Lawali’s parents are not one to leave their daughter without education. Shortly after the students’ release from captivity, Farida’s parents took her to the Government Girls Secondary School, Maru, even though she wanted to quit schooling. “It wasn’t up to a month (after the release),” she recalled. “My father wanted me to go to school so he took me there (GGSS Maru).”

“It wasn’t up to a month,” she recalled. “My father wanted me to go to school, so he took me there (GGSS Maru).”

“We were thrown into sadness during their abduction, but we finally admitted it as her fate as destined by God. We were excited when they got back safely. So, we decided that she would go back to school immediately,” Farida’s mother, Ruqayya Muhammad, recalled.

In 2023, Ms Lawali (not related to Sadiya) sat for WASSCE and was offered admission into the Zamfara State College of Education Maru, where she studied for a National Certificate of Education (NCE) in Primary Education. In December 2024, she sat her final examinations at the college and is awaiting her results.
“Now that she’s done with her NCE, we are happy that we gave her the foundation of education,” Farida’s mother added.

Last year, Zainab Ibrahim sat the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) and is now studying for a National Diploma in Medical Laboratory Science and Community Health at Sarkin Zamfara Ahmadu College of Health Sciences and Technology. However, she plans to register for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) to seek admission into the Federal University, Gusau.

“I want to study Nursing, but my father wants me to study Medical Laboratory Science. So, I started at Sarkin Zamfara College of Health,” she said.

A group of GGSS Jangebe students inspect their hostels for the first time since their abduction in 2021. Picture: Qosim Suleiman

GGSS Jangebe Today

On a Tuesday morning in January at GGSS Jangebe, about a dozen girls in mint green gowns, trousers, and flowing white hijab walked through a narrow walkway surrounded by bushes towards blocks of buildings that were once their hostels.

They gazed with amusement and intermittent chuckles at the dust and cobwebs covering the hostel’s walls, floors, and bunks — the only remnants of the building.

“This was our room,” one of them pointed at a hall, almost excitedly. It was their first time at the hostels since their abduction four years ago.

The students were among the few who returned to GGSS Jangebe after it reopened in April 2022. The majority of the students who came from different communities no longer school here. Before it was reopened, the Zamfara State Government converted the boarding school into a daily school, making it impossible for students from far away to attend.

Since the conversion, the school has seen less student population, the vice-principal, Nuradden Sulaiman, told PREMIUM TIMES.

“We used to have over 1000 students, but we currently have less than 500,” he said. “We have 10 classes. But only nine are occupied.”

Aside from the abandoned hostels behind the block of classrooms, the school showed no signs of the horror that occurred there four years ago. The school building, classrooms, and furniture, as seen by PREMIUM TIMES, appear intact.

The school has a science laboratory with burettes, pipettes, and human skeleton anatomy models. It also has a computer laboratory with over 30 desktop computers, even though they appeared abandoned.

Mr Sulaiman said the computers were not used as often as necessary due to the lack of constant electricity.

“We use them for practicals, and we have a generator, but due to the high cost of fueling it, we can’t always afford to fuel it,” he said.

Science Laboratory at GGSS Jangebe Picture: Qosim Suleiman

Despite the electricity challenges, staff and students say they believe the security situation in the community has improved.

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According to the vice-principal, the security situation in the community has improved since the abduction.
Mr Sulaiman has many expectations for the school’s operations. He fondly remembers how the school was when he was first posted there in 2020.

“If possible, the boarding system should resume,” he said.
But for Sadiya Lawal, GGSS Jangebe is the ideal classroom she could never return to.

Page planned and produced by: Aaron Cole