Borno Families and Church Leaders Demand Rescue
By Mike Odeh James
(ABUJA) — Families of 78 Borno schoolchildren held by Islamic jihadists have asked President Tinubu to show them the urgency that expedited return of Oyo pupils seized the same day.
“You gave the command, and today all the Oyo children have been united with their families,” Malla Gadzama, Chairman, Mussa and Lassa Concerned Citizens, told Tinubu at a press conference, speaking for the Margi community of Mussa and Lassa.
He pointed out that Oyo Governor Seyi Makinde worked with Tinubu across party lines, though challenging him for the presidency. In contrast, Borno Governor Babagana Zulum belongs to Tinubu’s own APC party and Vice President Kashim Shettima is from Borno, yet security authorities have not rescued the Christian school children.
“Why are our children still in captivity? Where did we go wrong? By sending them to school?” Gadzama asked.
“The continued captivity of Christian children kidnapped by ISWAP terrorists is a tragedy that demands urgent action,” Dr Gloria Samdi Puldu of the Leah Project, a member of the Interparliamentary Taskforce on Human Trafficking, told TruthNigeria.
“These children deserve more than sympathy. They deserve an urgent effort to locate them, secure their release, and reunite them with their families. The world must not look away,” she said.
On May 15, Islamic jihadists stormed Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba county, northeastern Borno State, on the edge of the Sambisa Forest in Northeast Nigeria. That day, gunmen believed to be Ansaru jihadists also struck three schools in Oriire county, Oyo State in Nigeria’s Western border, including the Baptist Nursery and Primary School in Yawota, seizing 39 pupils and seven teachers.
Striking Oyo State on the same day Boko Haram struck schools in their northern base of Borno State was a calculated signal by Al-Qaeda-backed Ansaru that they could project power and terror into Nigeria’s wealthier, southern regions at will, according to analysts contributing to The Conversation.
The Oyo victims came home after 56 days. On July 10, presidential adviser Bayo Onanuga announced that security agencies had rescued all of them. Survivors told Makinde the captors had executed two teachers, including mathematics teacher Michael Oyedokun, to pressure the government.
Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President Archbishop Daniel Okoh called the raid a national disgrace.
“When children are hunted in classrooms, silence becomes complicity,” Okoh said on May 18.
On June 22, the Catholic bishops of the Ibadan Ecclesiastical Province joined the appeal.
“Please bring them back home, for their return is long overdue,” the bishops said.
The Mussa children are still gone. Today marks 167 days since they were taken.
A Second Raid During Exams
On June 29, fighters believed to belong to the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), the Islamic State’s regional branch, attacked Government Day Secondary School in nearby Lassa while students sat national examinations. Borno Education Commissioner Lawan Abba Wakilbe said 36 students, 25 girls and 11 boys, remain captive.
Between 42 and 44 children were taken from Mussa. Many were toddlers. Witnesses said the gunmen used the children as human shields as they fled on motorcycles.
“Since yesterday, we cannot sleep,” Emmanuel Dari, a Lassa father whose 16-year-old daughter Lucy was taken, told Barnabas Aid.
A Christian Stronghold
Lassa is known as a historic Christian stronghold in Muslim-majority Borno. Askira-Uba borders Chibok, where Boko Haram seized 276 schoolgirls in 2014. The Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, known as EYN and a sister church of the U.S.-based Church of the Brethren, has said 217 of those girls were its members. A Gwoza community leader cited by Open Doors said all the Mussa victims were Christian.
On July 2, EYN President Rev. Daniel Y. C. Mbaya urged Tinubu and Zulum to rescue every remaining Lassa student.
“We shall continue to make every possible effort until all our children are brought home,” Mbaya said.
In August, Mbaya pointed to Oyo as proof that government action works, and demanded that every abducted Nigerian receive equal attention.
CAN in Borno declared three days of fasting and prayer for kidnapped Christians and other victims in Mussa, Lassa, Ngoshe and on the Biu-Buratai Road. At a Maiduguri service marking CAN’s 50th anniversary on Sept. 27, state chairman Bishop John Bakeni, also Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Maiduguri, turned the jubilee into a lament.
“How do you celebrate when your children are in captivity?” Bakeni asked.
On Sept. 21, parents gave Abuja six days to act or face a march on the Presidential Villa.
“He should either kill us, leave us alive, or rescue our children,” said Ishaku Suya, chairman of the parents’ association.
Silence at the Top
In July, the Borno government screened a proof-of-life video of the Lassa students guarded by two armed men under a flag with Arabic inscriptions.
President Tinubu’s Oct. 1 Independence Day address made no specific mention of the captives. Ten days later, the jihadists returned to Mussa, burning shops and destroying motorcycles, according to Mada Ayuba, liaison officer of the EYN District Church Council in Mussa. He reported no security response at the time.
In Oyo, by contrast, Tinubu sent the National Security Adviser and the Chief of Defence Staff to the affected communities and ordered 1,000 forest guards to the rescue effort. The Department of State Services later arraigned five alleged Ansaru leaders over the kidnapping.
“The government does not take action if Christians are kidnapped or killed. Rather, they will seek to compensate the terrorists,” David Onyilokwu Idah, a director at the International Human Rights Commission in Abuja, told TruthNigeria. He said the same pattern holds in Kaduna, Benue and Plateau states.
President Donald Trump designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom violations on Oct. 31, 2025. Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List found Nigeria accounted for 72 percent of the 4,849 Christians killed for their faith worldwide.
The Ashlee Momoh Foundation rallied at the United Nations office in Abuja on Oct. 27 and announced a 21-day vigil.
“Where is the UN while Christians in Nigeria are being slaughtered, driven from their homes, and terrorized for their faith?” asked Judd Saul, founder of Equipping the Persecuted, the U.S. charity that publishes TruthNigeria, in September.
“We feel forgotten. It is as if our children do not matter,” said Peter Haruna Waba, the councilor for Mussa Ward, in July.
Mike Odeh James is a conflict reporter for TruthNigeria.
