State Authorities Close Schools, Signalling Surrender to Terrorists
Opinion
(Maiduguri) — The bodies of victims are piling up in the forest battle zone on Nigeria’s southern border with Cameroon. 416 women and children abducted March 4 – most of them Christian — are now suffering from fever caused by cold weather, TruthNigeria has learned.
But many are also dying from Tse-fly fever spread by mosquitoes, according to a recent plea for help from the Borno South Youth Alliance (BOSYA). Some mothers have already buried their newborn babies, while more children continue to fall sick every day. The abductors have identified themselves as cadre of the Boko Haram (Western learning forbidden) an affiliate of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS).
The Borno South Youth Alliance (BOSYA) has raised the alarm with a desperate voice trembling with rage and grief, according to residents of the embattled town of Gwoshe speaking to TruthNigeria by phone.
“The terrorists demand ransom. The government hesitates. And in that deadly silence, lives are slipping away,” according to one resident who asked to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal. .
“If they (the government officials) cannot pay the ransom,” BOSYA declares, “then let them use those same resources to arm our military and rescue our people.”
Instead, the people of Southern Borno watch in bitter disbelief as political calculations take priority over human suffering, according to BOSYA. Elections loom larger than dying children. Campaign posters matter more than the desperate pleas of mothers watching their babies take their last breath in the cold. The message from those in power has become brutally clear: your lives are expendable.
The horror deepens with every passing night. Imagine a young mother clutching her feverish child under a leaking makeshift shelter, whispering prayers that grow fainter as hope dies. Imagine the haunting sound of another small coffin being lowered into the ground, another innocent soul lost not to Boko Haram’s blades alone, but to the indifference of those sworn to protect them.
The Abandoned Children of Mussa
In the blood-soaked hills of Askira/Uba, a region near Borno’s border with Yobe State, 42 young Christians students boys and girls with dreams still fresh in their hearts remain chained in Boko Haram’s nightmare, even as the Borno State Government quietly closes their school and moves the rest away. While these innocent children endure cold nights, hunger, beatings, and the constant terror of their captors, officials arrive with condolence messages and take photo opportunities, then seal the doors of Government Day Secondary School, Mussa, as if giving up on the community itself.
On Monday, Borno State Commissioner for Education, Engr. Lawan Abba Wakilbe, led a high-level delegation to Mussa. They offered condolences, shook hands with grieving parents, and promised “intensified efforts.” But the most telling action was cold and clinical: the immediate closure of the local secondary school and its relocation to Government Secondary School in Uba.
The message to the people of Mussa is devastatingly clear: Your children have been taken, and now even the place where they once studied and played is too dangerous to exist.
This is not protection. This is surrender dressed up as policy.
Link to the official statement from Borno State government through Media aid Duada Iliya:
The 42 abducted students, snatched on May 15, 2026, are still out there in the forests, likely shivering from the same harsh cold that is killing Ngoshe captives, tormented by mosquitoes and disease, watching their friends weaken daily. Some may already be sick. Some may never return. Their parents, drowning in “severe emotional and psychological trauma,” are left behind in empty compounds, staring at the now-silent school compound that once held their children’s futures.
“While the children scream for rescue in the bush, the government is relocating desks and blackboards,” one of the elders from Askira-Uba LGA told TruthNigeria in an exclusive interview.
Governor Babagana Umara Zulum visited the area on May 19 with similar assurances. Yet, days later, the strongest response remains closing the school under the Safe Schools Initiative. The remaining students are being moved to Uba for “safer conditions,” but what comfort is that to the mothers whose children are missing? What does it say to a community when the official solution to abduction is to abandon the village school altogether?
Governor Attempts to Bribe Parents to Quash Outcry
But the governor is scrambling to save his image seven months ahead of national elections. Accusations are spreading like wildfire across Southern Borno: the same governor who visited on May 19 with promises of “swift action” is now accused of dropping ₦10 million ($6,000) on the devastated parents. Ten million naira. A figure that sounds generous on paper but feels like a cruel insult when measured against the lives of 42 terrified students still missing since their abduction on May 15, 2026. Is this compensation for stolen futures? Hush money to silence mourning mothers? Or a desperate attempt to buy time while the children suffer the same slow death now ravaging the 416 Ngoshe women and children?
Premium Times, in a brave attempt to dignify the sacrifices of the Christian residents of Gwoza, has fleshed out the bribe controversy, the abduction, Governor Zulum’s visit, and questions trailing the reported support package.
Suleman Ayuba, a native of Gwoza, contributes investigative news and commentary to TruthNigeria.
