The Humanitarian Times

By Abdulkareem Haruna

A coalition of civil society organisations has issued a sharp rebuke of the region’s current security architecture following the abduction of 48 children from a school in Borno State, warning that the attack exposes critical vulnerabilities in communities bordering insurgent strongholds.

​The Network of Civil Society Organizations – Borno State (NECSOB) expressed “profound shock” over the Friday, May 15 assault on Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School, located in the Mussa-Biri community of Askira-Uba Local Government Area.

​The raid, which took place during morning learning hours, triggered widespread panic. While dozens of pupils managed to flee into the surrounding bushes to escape the attackers, 48 children were captured and taken away. The incident has left parents and residents in a state of severe psychological trauma.

​In a statement signed by its Executive Director, Abubakar Abdullahi Suleiman, NECSOB strongly condemned the weaponisation of children’s education, describing it as a grave violation of fundamental human rights.

The attack deals a heavy blow to the state’s fragile recovery process. For years, Borno State authorities have pushed a high-stakes stabilization campaign aimed at shutting down internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, resettling populations, and aggressively driving up school enrolment in areas previously devastated

over a decade of conflict.

“This terrifying incidence poses a direct threat to milestones achieved in our stabilization efforts and child enrolment drive,” Suleiman warned. “It further instils fear in parents and caregivers, casting a dark shadow over the right to safe learning environments.”

The vulnerability of parameters

The Humanitarian Times has frequently reported on the precarious security situation faced by communities situated along the fringes of insurgent operating theatres. Askira-Uba sits in a highly volatile corridor, vulnerable to incursions due to its proximity to the Sambisa Forest and the Mandara Mountains—rugged terrains that have long served as sanctuaries for both Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) fighters.

NECSOB noted that the Mussa-Biri raid highlights a failure to protect these outer perimeters, where communities are often left exposed once state-led developmental projects move in without corresponding, long-term security presence.

The coalition also drew attention to the ongoing challenge of “insider threats,” calling on the federal and state governments to investigate the “complicity of local informants’ networks” that may have aided the insurgents in timing the raid.

Demands for Structural Shift

​Moving beyond standard rhetoric, the advocacy network demanded a fundamental pivot in how the government protects civilians in frontline areas. They put forward a series of urgent interventions:

• ​Rapid Search and Rescue: A coordinated operation by security forces to track the captors, secure the unconditional release of the 48 children, and safely recover the students who are still missing in the bushes.
• ​Early-Warning Systems: A comprehensive review of the security architecture to ensure border and resettlement communities possess active, reliable early-warning mechanisms to prevent insurgent incursions.
• ​Safe Schools Operationalisation: The immediate implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration across all local government areas in Borno, backed by the deployment of heavily reinforced community policing around schools and healthcare facilities.
• ​Grassroots Vigilance: The facilitation of town hall dialogues with community leaders, traditional institutions, and local CSOs to leverage grassroots intelligence and build a more inclusive defense system.

​The coalition emphasised that it would continue to monitor the situation closely, promising to hold state actors accountable until security is restored.

“We will not relent in holding duty-bearers accountable until every child is back home and in the classroom,” Suleiman said.