Nigeria’s school abductions: Why children are being targeted

President Muhammadu Buhari has insinuated that state governors are fuelling the crisis By Nduka Orjinmo Since December, more than 600 students have been abducted from schools in north-west Nigeria, highlighting a worrying development in the country's kidnap-for-ransom crisis. Friday's kidnapping of nearly 300 students from the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara state, which ended with their release, was the second mass kidnap from schools in less than 10 days. Twenty-seven boys and their teachers who were taken from a school in Kagara, Niger state on 17 February were released on Saturday. The authorities say recent attacks on schools in the north-west have been carried out by "bandits", a loose term for kidnappers, armed robbers, cattle rustlers, Fulani herdsmen and other armed militia operating in the region who are largely motivated by money. Many here believe that a weak security infrastructure and governors who have little control over security in their states - the police and army are controlled by the federal government - and have resorted to paying ransoms, have made mass abductions a lucrative source of income. It is an accusation the governors deny.