Gunmen Kill Vice Principal, Kidnap 25 Schoolgirls in Attack on Boarding School

Gunmen launched an early-morning assault on a government girls’ boarding school in Kebbi State, Nigeria, taking the life of the vice principal and abducting 25 female students, Nigeria police have confirmed.

Armed with rifles, the attackers stormed Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga around 4 a.m., exchanging gunfire with police before breaching the school’s perimeter fence. Vice Principal Hassan Yakubu Makuku was shot dead while trying to resist the attackers, and another staff member was injured, police spokesperson Nafiu Abubakar Kotarkoshi said.

Security forces—including tactical police units, soldiers, and local vigilantes—have been deployed to track the kidnappers through suspected escape routes and nearby forests.

The incident adds to a growing wave of mass school abductions in northwest Nigeria, where armed groups frequently target students for ransom. The crisis echoes the 2014 Chibok abduction by Boko Haram, when 270 schoolgirls were taken—many of whom remain missing.