Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has linked Nigeria’s escalating insecurity and recurring mass abductions of schoolchildren to what she described as entrenched, systemic corruption that has weakened the nation’s key institutions.
In a statement shared Monday on her X handle, Ezekwesili argued that corruption has deeply undermined Nigeria’s core values, leaving institutions such as the military and the judiciary compromised and unable to deliver on their responsibilities.
“Endemic corruption gradually ate up the very values on which they were founded, rendering them the impotent institutions we now know,” she wrote.
The former minister, who also co-convened the BringBackOurGirls Movement, said the warnings issued over the years about the dangers of poor governance have now materialised, as the country confronts the consequences of prolonged institutional decay.
Referencing figures from UNICEF and Save the Children, Ezekwesili noted that more than 1,680 students were abducted in 70 attacks between 2014 and 2022, while another 816 students were taken in 22 incidents recorded from 2023 to November 2025.
She stressed that public outrage is no longer enough more than ten years after the Chibok schoolgirls were kidnapped in 2014, insisting that the continuing wave of student abductions reflects state failure rather than isolated lapses in security operations. “The latest group of abducted children are not just hostages of terrorists; they are hostages of the unforgivable failure of governments and a political class that refuse to be moved, and of a people whose empathy has been steadily eroded,” she said.
According to her, the unrelenting attacks highlight the breakdown of the state’s most basic obligation — ensuring the safety and protection of its children, whom she described as its most valuable resource.
Ezekwesili concluded that a decade after the Chibok tragedy, the Federal Government can no longer claim it lacks understanding or is still undergoing a learning process.
