NUT Threatens Closure of Schools Over Safety Concerns
The Nigeria Union of Teachers has issued its sternest warning yet, threatening to shut down schools across the country if another attack occurs in any educational institution, following a devastating wave of abductions and killings that has swept through schools in Oyo, Borno, and Kebbi States.
The NUT President, Titus Amba, declared that the union would direct teachers to stay away from classrooms nationwide if their safety could no longer be guaranteed, warning that Nigeria’s basic education system stands on the brink of collapse.
The threat comes against a grim backdrop of escalating violence in Nigerian schools. In Oyo State, gunmen launched brazen, coordinated attacks on three institutions, Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Community Grammar School, and LA Primary School, abducting an estimated 39 pupils and seven teachers in a single sweep. In Borno State, more than 50 pupils of Mussa Central Primary School in Askira Uba Local Government Area were recently kidnapped. Kebbi State has equally been ravaged, with teachers and students carted away by armed assailants.
Speaking with The PUNCH, Amba lamented that incidents of banditry, kidnappings, and killings had continued unabated despite the Safe Schools Initiative introduced to protect educational institutions across the country.
“As far as we are concerned, we are still where we are, and of recent, things are beginning to get worse, going by the trend of events in our educational institutions, most especially at the basic education level,” he stated.
“The Safe Schools Initiative was good, but we are not yet there. It has not ensured the security of our schools because pockets of kidnappings, banditry and killings have been going on in Borno and recently in Kebbi and Oyo.”
The crisis is not new. According to data compiled by Save the Children International and UNICEF, more than 1,500 students have been abducted from Nigerian schools since the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping of April 2014, when 276 girls were seized from Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Between December 2020 and 2024, multiple mass abductions occurred at Kankara (Katsina), Kagara (Niger), Jangebe (Zamfara), Tegina (Niger), Bethel Baptist High School (Kaduna), and Kuriga (Kaduna), where 287 pupils were taken in a single incident in March 2024.
UNICEF estimates that Nigeria currently has approximately 18.3 million out of school children, the highest figure globally, a crisis significantly worsened by insecurity. A 2024 World Bank report noted that school attacks in northern Nigeria have forced the closure of more than 11,500 schools at various points since 2020, disrupting the education of millions of children.
Amba detailed the brutality faced by educators, recounting that “In Kebbi, teachers and students were carted away; the vice principal was killed in the presence of the family. In Oyo, teachers were kidnapped; one was killed, another was beheaded in broad daylight.”
The Safe Schools Initiative, launched in 2014 following the Chibok abductions, was designed to protect Nigerian schools through fortified infrastructure, security personnel, and emergency response systems. Despite a $20 million initial commitment and subsequent budgetary allocations, the programme has struggled to deliver measurable security outcomes in vulnerable regions.
Amba stressed that the union’s patience had reached breaking point. “This is the last time that we will agitate alone. If this should happen again in any of our states, we will have no reason not to shut down the entire basic education system. If teachers are not safe where they work, then the system has failed because our schools are endangered.”
The NUT president confirmed that abducted victims remain in captivity. “As we speak, they are still in the hands of their captors. That is why we have given directives to Oyo State NUT that schools that are in danger of being attacked, all teachers in those areas should remain indoors. No teacher should go to school. That is the instruction we have given.”
He further called on communities to assume joint responsibility for the protection of local schools, while reminding the government of its constitutional duty under Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, which establishes the security and welfare of citizens as the primary purpose of government.
“Community leaders, everyone, including communities, it is your responsibility to see how you will safeguard those schools. Every hand should be on deck,” Amba said. “The responsibility of government is to protect lives and property, schools inclusive.”
With Nigeria’s literacy rate already strained at approximately 62 percent according to the National Bureau of Statistics, and northern states bearing the heaviest burden of out of school children, the prospect of a nationwide teachers’ withdrawal carries far reaching implications for an education system already teetering under decades of underfunding and insecurity.