NUT President, Titus Amba-Audu, criticised what he described as the Federal Government’s inadequate commitment to the Safe Schools Declaration, a policy framework adopted to protect education from violence. According to him, the lack of full implementation has created conditions in which criminal groups increasingly target schools with impunity.
Recent incidents underscore his concerns. In the past month, armed groups abducted 25 students from Government Girls Comprehensive Science College, Maga in Kebbi State, and 315 pupils from Saint Mary’s Primary and Secondary School in Papari, Niger State. The vice principal and a security guard at the Kebbi school were also killed. Several schools in affected regions have since been shut down, heightening fears about long-term learning disruptions.
Amba-Audu said teachers nationwide share a sense of outrage familiar to many Nigerians, recalling that the country has endured repeated mass abductions over the past decade—from the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls to the 2018 Dapchi case, the 2021 Kaduna and Zamfara school kidnappings, and the 287 pupils taken in Kuriga, Kaduna State, in 2024. He argued that these recurring tragedies reflect systemic failures to safeguard the education sector.
The union maintained that it expects urgent and coordinated interventions from federal, state and local authorities to secure schools, strengthen community protection and ensure that teachers can carry out their work safely. Without tangible progress, the NUT warned it may have no option but to initiate nationwide industrial action, a move it says is necessary to defend the fundamental right to safe education for Nigerian children.