By MacDonald Dzirutwe
LAGOS (Reuters) -The families of Papiri had long called for security forces to protect their children at the school in northern Nigeria where more than 300 pupils were kidnapped by gunmen last week, in one of the country’s worst mass abductions.
They say that no one came.
“Neither the police, nor the military nor the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps responded to our demands,” said Dauda Gwanja, whose 15-year-old son Zakariya was among the pupils abducted from St Mary’s school in Papiri village.
Instead, the village had arranged for volunteer men to guard the premises. But when dozens of gunmen on motorbikes stormed the school on Friday morning, the unarmed guards knew they stood no chance and fled, he told Reuters.
The attack on the Catholic school has laid bare President Bola Tinubu’s faltering security efforts, which have been under heightened scrutiny since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened military action over the treatment of Christians.
TINUBU’S SECURITY PROMISES UNFULFILLED
Two-and-a-half years into Tinubu’s term, rating agencies have praised his economic reforms but almost daily attacks remain broadly unchecked, despite his pledge to recruit more soldiers and police officers and better pay and equip them.
Armed gangs routinely kidnap schoolchildren for ransom in remote places like Papiri, a dusty village with a patchy phone network which lies 6 km (4 miles) from the nearest police outpost – which only deals with petty crime – and a four-hour drive from the nearest town.
In Nigeria’s northeast, attacks on civilians by jihadist militants appear to have eased in recent months, but insurgents have used drones and heavy firepower to overrun army bases, killing troops and carting away weapons.
The attack at St Mary’s school in Niger state, in which 12 teachers were also seized, was one of the worst mass abductions ever recorded in Nigeria – surpassing even the infamous Chibok kidnapping in 2014 of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram.
TINUBU REDEPLOYS SECURITY RESOURCES
It was the third mass abduction in northern Nigeria in the space of a few days, with another school and a church also targeted.
Tinubu cancelled two foreign trips following the abductions and ordered security forces to go after the assailants.
On Sunday, the 73-year-old president instructed the police to redeploy tens of thousands of officers assigned to “VIPs” including politicians, company executives and celebrities, to focus on core duties like protecting ordinary people.
Tinubu also said 30,000 more policemen would be recruited to fight the bandits that roam across isolated hamlets and border areas where the state is largely absent and weapons abound.
But the closure of nearly 50 schools in the north, for fear they could be targets of armed gangs, shows the limits of the government’s own faith in being able to stop the wave of kidnappings quickly.
QUARTER OF POLICE FORCE GUARDS VIPS
Agora Policy, a Nigerian think tank which has long called for police reform, says that at least 100,000 officers – more than a quarter of the total police force, Africa’s largest – are currently assigned to protecting VIPs and politicians.
“We should take this resurgence (in attacks)…to embark on the root-and-branch reforms that we have left undone for so long,” said Waziri Adio, the think tank’s head, calling for more police recruits and also better pay, training and equipment.
A low-ranking police officer earns a monthly net pay of 80,000 naira ($55) in Nigeria. When attached to politicians or other officials, police officers can receive handouts like food and gifts that exceed their salary, and the job is less risky.
The military are only relatively better paid – an army private earns 114,000 naira ($78.50) a month, rising to 200,000 naira if posted to the frontline fighting insurgents, two serving troops said.
Soldiers often complain of fatigue after being deployed for long periods without rest, and fret over the payments of allowances that boost their salary, said Mike Kebonkwu, a retired army officer and security analyst who has investigated insurgents’ attacks on troops.
He said that Nigerian security forces often have to contend with an enemy that is nimble and better adapted to the terrain, with bandits hiding in dense forests with their hostages.
INTELLIGENCE FAILURES COMPOUND SECURITY CRISIS
In Kebbi state in the northwest, questions were raised over how gunmen kidnapped 25 girls from a boarding school last week when authorities had received intelligence of a possible attack.
State governor Nasir Idris said soldiers had been deployed to protect the school but left in the early hours of November 17. Less than an hour later, gunmen attacked, killed the vice principal and abducted the girls, he said.
“We … ask the military authority to also investigate and find out who gave that order (to withdraw troops),” Idris told reporters last week.
A few days before that raid, a Nigerian brigadier-general was captured and killed by the militant group known as Islamic State West Africa Province in Borno state in the northeast.
The general had earlier escaped an ambush and was in contact with his base over the phone, sharing his live location. But insurgents got to him first, leading to suspicions that his location may have been leaked to them, two army sources said.
The military did not respond to Reuters questions about the two incidents.
($1 = 1,452.6300 naira)
(Reporting by MacDonald Dzirutwe, additional reporting by Ben Ezeamalu in Lagos, Abraham Achirga in Abuja and Ahmed Kingimi in Maiduguri, Editing by Silvia Aloisi and Ros Russell)
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