-By Abdul Mahmud
Editor’s Note: Shortly after PACESETTER received this week’s column for publication yesterday, Sunday, December 21, 2025, the abducted students were released. We have gone ahead to publish this piece for historical and academic purposes.
Four weeks ago, students of a Catholic school in Papiri in Niger State were seized along with their teachers. The country absorbed the news with a familiar mix of dread and fatigue. Abduction has become a steady feature of our public life. Then came silence. Families waited. Communities prayed. A nation listened for any sign that the state still possessed the will to protect its children. When words finally arrived, it came not from the parents or the school or a rescue operation, but from the National Security Adviser. He assured our bewildered country that the children were fine. Fine. The word landed with the weight of indifference. It assumed knowledge without evidence and authority without accountability. It poses fear in a country where comfort has given way, heralding a “new civilisation”. This is how I described it in my op-ed, ‘The Country Where Hostages Are Fine’, a few weeks ago: “In a country that has arrived ahead of other countries at the new civilisation. A civilisation where captivity becomes wellness. A civilisation where fear gives way to fear that becomes comfort. A civilisation where parents receive news of their abducted children with gratitude because the NSA has spoken”.
I described that assurance as “a piece of miracle” which abolished the need for rescue because it treated terror as mere inconvenience and pain as an abstract concern. Days later, more than one hundred children were released. Relief followed, though it was tinged with suspicion.
Many Nigerians believe the release followed a transaction. Money exchanged for abductees. If that belief is correct, then the state has chosen the path of accommodation. It has signaled that violence pays and that innocence carries a price tag. That message travels faster than any patrol or policy.
As you read this, Christmas is three days away. Some of the children remain in captivity. No statement has explained why they were left behind. No timeline has been offered. No public accounting has been made. Parents wait with phones pressed to their chests. The rest of the country watches with the heavy knowledge that our shared moral calendar has slipped out of joint.
Do the children know it is Christmas?
That question is not sentimental. It is moral. Christmas speaks to care, love, shelter, and the dignity of the vulnerable. It asks adults to protect the young and the weak. In Papiri, the season arrives without its promise. The children are held by men who thrive on fear and profit from despair. Days stretch without schooling, without safety, without the reassurance of familiar voices. Hunger gnaws. Night brings cold and whispers. A child measures time by fear and hope by the sound of footsteps. The pain of the children is compounded by uncertainty. Captivity strips away the small anchors that steady the young mind. Routine disappears. Authority becomes menace. The body tenses at every command. Sleep fractures. Faith strains. Even those released will carry the memory forward, etched into how they trust and how they dream.
Parents endure separate torments. They replay the morning their children left home. They scan roads and phones and rumours. They negotiate between hope and dread because surrender to either feels dangerous. Mothers and fathers sit with an emptiness that refuses consolation. No prayer is too small. No official word feels sufficient. Trauma settles into the body and does not wait for permission. The country shares the bewilderment. We have watched this pattern repeat across regions and years. Schools targeted. Villages raided. Assurances offered. Payments rumored. Consequences deferred. Each episode chips away at confidence in the state. Each denial or half truth teaches citizens to expect less and fear more.
No country can be governed on reassurance alone. It requires truth, action, and accountability. Government has a duty that precedes politics. Protect life. Protect children. Speak honestly. When officials announce that captives are fine without evidence, they gamble with credibility. When releases appear transactional, they legitimise crime. When silence follows partial success, they abandon those still held and deepen the wounds of those left waiting. There is also the matter of equality. Which children are retrieved first and why. Who decides whose life carries urgency. The absence of answers invites a corrosive suspicion that power and proximity shape outcomes. Such suspicion undermines social trust and fuels resentment. Insecurity thrives where trust collapses.
The school itself stands as a symbol. Education should be a sanctuary. When classrooms become hunting grounds, the social contract frays. Parents withdraw children. Teachers flee. Communities shrink their aspirations. The future dims because learning retreats under threat. The cost extends beyond Papiri. It reaches every family that wonders whether school gates offer safety or risk. Christmas sharpens the questions. It draws attention to absence. Chairs left empty. Songs unsung. Gifts unwrapped. The season exposes what governance has failed to secure. Celebration becomes a test of conscience. Our country must ask itself whether it can truly celebrate while children remain in captivity. Scores of them, including those abducted from the First ECWA Church in Ayetoro Kiri, Kabba, Kogi State just days ago, are still unseen and unheard. Over the weekend, a video emerged as grim proof of life, a haunting reminder that these children are not statistics but lives suspended in fear, held by evil men in a country struggling to find its conscience.
What should be done?
First, the government must speak plainly. Say who remains captive. Say what is being done. Say what will not be done. Ambiguity feeds rumor and fear.
Second, the state must commit to ending the market for abduction. Paying ransoms, directly or indirectly, entrenches criminal economies. It invites repetition. A strategy that rewards terror cannot deliver safety.
Third, there must be accountability within security institutions. Who assessed the risk to the school. Who failed to prevent the attack. Who authorised public statements that lacked grounding. Accountability is not vengeance. It is the discipline that prevents recurrence.
Fourth, support for the families must be visible and sustained. Counseling, medical care, and financial assistance should not depend on headlines. Trauma lingers after cameras move on. The state must remain present when attention fades.
Finally, there must be a national reckoning with the conditions that allow terror to recruit and operate. Policing, intelligence, community trust, and justice must align. Words alone will by not rescue children. Policies that center human life might. Do the children know it is Christmas? They may know the sound of distant bells carried by memory. They may count days by the return of light. They may hold on to a prayer learned at home or school. What they deserve is more than hope. They deserve a country that acts as if their lives matter. When Christmas morning arrives, it will not be enough to wish peace. Peace is built through protection and truth. Until every child is home, the season remains unfinished. The government must choose whether it stands with the children or hides behind assurances. Our country watches. The parents wait. The children endure; but the question which remains unanswered is: do they know it is Christmas?
Editor’s Note: Shortly after PACESETTER received this week’s column for publication yesterday, Sunday, December 21, 2025, the abducted students were released. We have gone ahead to publish this piece for historical and academic purposes.