Bishop Bulus Yohana Dauwa of the Diocese of Kontagora is sounding the alarm over worsening insecurity in northwestern Nigeria after 25 schoolgirls were abducted from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State on Nov. 17.
Speaking to ACI Africa, CNA’s African news partner, the bishop said the kidnapping reflects a growing national crisis. The attack, he explained, unfolded over nearly five brutal hours. “The country is no longer safe for its children,” he said, recounting the testimonies he gathered from traumatized witnesses who survived the assault.
According to Catholic News Agency (CNA), an eyewitness told Bishop Dauwa that suspicious men believed to be soldiers arrived at the school the afternoon before the kidnapping. Roughly 15 of them entered on motorcycles and a van, “wielding guns.” They reportedly searched the property without explanation and then departed.
Hours later, in the early morning darkness, heavily armed bandits stormed the compound. According to CNA, the attackers first approached the residence of staff member Mallam Hassan Yakubu, whom they shot dead as he prayed. When his wife refused to reveal the students’ location, gunmen abducted one of her daughters and forced her to lead them to the girls’ hostel.
Witnesses told the bishop that gunfire continued “from 1 a.m. until 6 a.m.” before the attackers fled. Only after their departure did security personnel instruct teachers to conduct a roll call—when the missing girls were discovered.
The school, normally guarded by both soldiers and police and home to around 300 students, has since been shut down indefinitely. CNA reports it remains unclear whether the security personnel normally assigned there were present during the attack.
Dauwa said the abduction is part of a worsening pattern of violence impacting Kebbi State and neighboring regions. “It has never been this bad. People sleep in the bush because they have nowhere else to run,” he told ACI Africa.
The bishop urged parents to continue praying for their missing daughters. “We are praying that God will guide and protect these girls wherever they are,” he said, adding that “the government must do everything possible to bring them back. All of them will come back alive.”
Beyond the immediate crisis, Dauwa also spoke about deeper issues affecting Christian communities in the region. According to CNA, he described “silent discrimination and persecution” that has persisted for decades, citing resistance to Church efforts to acquire land, build parishes, or open schools.
“Christians have been enduring what I call silent persecution,” he said. “They stopped us from building our school and churches. They claimed our land was too close to their mosque, and every planting season, they would break the boundary.”
In some cases, he told ACI Africa, local communities constructed mosques directly in front of donated church plots to obstruct Christian worship. One parish took more than a decade to establish. A turning point came, he said, after intense prayers to St. Padre Pio. Dauwa recounted that the local emir, who was bedridden abroad, unexpectedly intervened: “It was a miracle. That very day, they gave us every paper they had denied us.”
The bishop also emphasized that attacks across his diocese continue unabated. “They entered one of our outstation churches, and everybody ran into the bush. There was no time to do anything,” he told CNA.
Dauwa criticized political leaders for focusing on partisan disputes rather than national safety. “If the government had done enough, we would not be where we are today,” he said. “Instead of facing reality, they are debating whether Muslims or Christians are being killed. That is not the main issue.”
He also warned that elected officials appear more concerned about the next election cycle than the crisis unfolding before them. “They are more interested in 2027. Security is not their problem, but how to win the elections,” he said.
According to CNA, Dauwa recently met with the governor of Niger State and urged him to deliver a direct message to Nigeria’s president: “Let him do something about the insecurity. That is the best way he can campaign now.”
As the nation prays for the safe return of the abducted girls, Bishop Dauwa insists that Nigeria’s leaders must treat the crisis not as a political talking point, but as an urgent moral responsibility to protect every child—particularly the most vulnerable.
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