Twenty-four schoolgirls who were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, have been released, according to security sources and videos shared on Tuesday.
The girls were seized in a dawn attack on the boarding school on November 17, when armed bandits stormed the premises, killed the school’s vice principal, and injured a security guard.
At the time of the attack, authorities reported 25 girls had been taken.
According to local officials, two of the abducted students managed to escape shortly after the attack, running across farmland as they were being led toward the forest.
Security forces, including police tactical units, the military, and vigilante groups, carried out coordinated search-and-rescue operations, combing nearby forests and suspected escape routes.
Aso Rock Welcomes the Freedom
President Bola Tinubu welcomed the development, saying he was “relieved that all the 24 girls have been accounted for.”
He called for “more boots on the ground” in vulnerable communities to prevent further kidnappings.
As of now, no official statement has detailed how and where the girls were rescued, but a video shared by presidential spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, showed the girls on a bus after their release.
All the 24 Kebbi schoolgirls fully accounted for. No one left behind. pic.twitter.com/RvxwC8tyj1
— Bayo Onanuga, OON, CON (@aonanuga1956) November 25, 2025
Their abductions, and those of other students and Christian worshipers in Papiri in Niger State and Eruku in Kwara State, add to a troubling wave of new attacks in northern Nigeria.
The latest attack is the abduction of no fewer than 20 people in Kano State on Monday.
