LAGOS: A top Nigerian general has ordered his troops to fight “day and night” to rescue 25 schoolgirls abducted in the northwest.

The early Monday morning raid on a secondary school in Kebbi state was the latest in a string of abductions of schoolchildren in northern Nigeria, more than a decade after Boko Haram’s infamous kidnapping of 276 girls in the northeast sparked international uproar.

“You must continue day and night fighting. We must find these children,” Maj Gen Waidi Shaibu, recently promoted to chief of army staff, told troops deployed to Kebbi state on Monday. Shaibu urged the soldiers to “leave no stone unturned” in the search for the schoolgirls.

Though police rushed to the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga, the gang had managed to scale the fence and steal away with the students after killing the school’ vice principal.

Kebbi is caught between a militant threat from neighbouring Niger and the scourge of criminal gangs who loot villages.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2025