Former Education Minister and Bring Back Our Girls co-convener, Oby Ezekwesili, has blamed Nigeria’s rising insecurity and repeated mass abductions of schoolchildren on “cancerous, systemic corruption” that has weakened the country’s institutions.
In a post on her X handle on Monday, Ezekwesili said corruption had eroded the country’s core values, leaving key institutions, including the military and judiciary, “terribly compromised and incapable of delivering on their mandate.”
She wrote, “Endemic corruption gradually ate up the very values on which they were founded and rendered them the impotent institutions we now know.”
Ezekwesili noted that despite repeated warnings about ignoring good governance, Nigeria is now facing the full consequences of institutional decay. Citing data from UNICEF and Save the Children, she said more than 1,680 students were abducted in 70 attacks between 2014 and 2022, while another 816 students were taken in 22 attacks from 2023 to November 2025.
She said outrage alone “no longer feels adequate,” describing the recurring kidnappings as evidence of state failure rather than isolated security breaches.
“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 to a people whose empathy has been steadily eroded,” Ezekwesili said.
She added that the persistent attacks show “proof of state collapse in its most basic duty, the protection of our greatest human asset: our children.”
“What we have is deliberate negligence, and deliberate negligence is a crime,” she declared, stressing that the government can no longer claim ignorance.
Ezekwesili concluded, “Any government that continues without rescuing abducted children or adequately securing schools accepts that it governs without legitimacy. Enough said.”
