When Being a Girl Becomes a Risk in Nigeria By Ummi Umar

I write with a broken heart. A heart so bruised it feels shattered. There is no day I open Instagram, X or WhatsApp without stumbling on another story that tears at the soul, another reminder that insecurity, banditry and sheer lawlessness have become a constant shadow over this country. It almost never gets better with us.

For weeks now, it has been one tragedy after another. One kidnapping case replaced by the next. Little girls taken from their schools. Families plunged into fear. We have reached a point where people whisper painful prayers like “may Nigeria never happen to me”, because we have watched the nation turn against its own.

Only last week, schoolgirls in Kebbi were abducted. And even though news has just broken that they have been freed, the joy of their return cannot erase the trauma of their ordeal or the deeper truth it exposes about our country. In that same week, more than three hundred students were taken from a Catholic school. These were girls who simply wanted to learn, to grow, to dream, to build a life. Their only “fault” was the desire to be educated. And then Nigeria happened to them.

There is no way to describe the agony of sending your child to school and then seeing on the news that she has been taken by ruthless, faceless men. You do not know whether she has eaten, whether she is being harmed, what fears she is battling, what pain she is enduring. Is it a crime to be a girl child in this country? Why must she carry so much suffering on her small shoulders?

The rate of insecurity in Nigeria today is beyond alarming. And our leaders, what exactly are they doing? Must it be your daughter, your niece, your cousin, your wife before you feel any urgency? Must tragedy knock at your own door before you remember the weight of responsibility?

Those who lead us, those who hold authority, are meant to use every tool within their reach to protect citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Yet what do we see? Are they asleep? Is ordering schools to vacate the answer? When there is even a whisper of protest, government mobilises soldiers with unbelievable speed. But when children are carried away by bandits, the same urgency disappears as though the nation cannot see what is happening.

If you want to understand misplaced priorities, look no further than Nigerian leadership.

Sending students home is not a solution. It strips these girls of their fundamental right to education. And then what happens when they resume? Will the cycle of fear, evacuation and abduction continue? What truly is the way forward?

Our leaders must seek real, practical solutions to these recurring horrors. They must rise to their duties and be held accountable. Our girls are suffering. They are far too young to bear this kind of trauma. No girl, no child, no human being deserves this. No parent deserves the torment of knowing that their daughter is in the hands of men who may do only God knows what to her.

Our love, our prayers and our support remain with these girls and with their families. We thank God for the safe return of the abducted Kebbi schoolgirls, but we refuse to let that relief distract us from the painful truth that no child should ever have been taken in the first place. 

We continue to pray for every child still in captivity, and for the strength of the families waiting for their return. May our leaders finally be held accountable. May our girls be protected, truly and consistently. And may Nigeria never happen to any of us.

*Rabi Ummi Umar is an intern at IMPR and can be reached via: [email protected].*