Maiduguri, Nigeria — The news reaches a man the way bad news always reaches a man: suddenly, completely, without asking permission. Musa Abdullahi Wakawa learned that his wife and their seven-year-old son had been abducted, and as Adamu Aliyu Ngulde reported for Al Jazeera from Maiduguri, his disbelief lasted only a moment before fear replaced it. Then fear, too, was replaced — by arithmetic. How much money does a family have? How much can it borrow, sell, beg? The kidnappers had named a ransom, and for days Musa searched for a way to raise it and bring his family home.
Across northeastern Nigeria, this arithmetic has become a rural industry with two parties and no rules. Families sell livestock, take loans, dispose of property, exhaust savings — all in the hope that a number, once paid, will translate into a person.
A call from the bush
Laraba Dauda, 45, remembers her last conversation with her younger sister. The sister was abducted on January 13, 2026, along the Biu–Buratai road, Laraba said. Shortly afterwards, the phone rang. Her sister was calling from somewhere in the bush, on a captor’s terms.
Aunty, unknown people have kidnapped us and taken us somewhere in the bush. We don’t know where they are taking us. At this moment, Aunty, please just help me with your prayers.
The call ended in tears. Three words ended it altogether: “This is my last communication.” Months later, Laraba and her family do not know where her sister is held, or whether she is safe. What she asks of the state is simple and enormous: “We need the government to come to our aid and help rescue our relatives who have spent more than six months in captivity.”
For Anjikwi Hena, the loss arrived at the very threshold of hope. His son had completed his education and was preparing to travel to Maiduguri in search of work; his father encouraged him and prayed for his success. The young man was abducted on March 30, 2026. He never reached the city.
Fifty-six schools out of one hundred and thirteen
In the Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, the arithmetic also operates on schools. Only 56 of 113 primary schools are currently functioning, according to Fasuma Askira, the local government education secretary. Before the May attack on the village of Mussa, 76 were operating; the threat of violence then forced 20 more to close.
On May 15, suspected rebel fighters attacked Mussa and abducted dozens of children. A register later obtained by news services identified 40 missing children, though figures provided by the community and government have varied — the Borno State government has more recently spoken of about 44 children still unaccounted for. Then, on June 29, armed rebels struck the Government Day Secondary School in Lassa while students were sitting National Examinations Council examinations. Some students were recovered shortly afterwards; 36 students and a teacher remain in captivity.
The education authority moved junior secondary students from Mussa to a government boarding school in Uba and advised deploying community vigilantes around schools; soldiers have been posted to Mussa and Lassa alongside local vigilantes, Askira said. In these communities, keeping a child in school now means weighing education against abduction — a calculation no parent should be asked to make, and every parent here makes daily.
What the state says, what the analysts say
Borno is not an island. Amnesty International Nigeria says at least 1,100 people were abducted across the country between January and April 2026, and warns the true figure is likely considerably higher — in remote communities, many incidents are never reported. “Apart from killing people, gunmen are now on a rampage of abductions, largely for lucrative ransom,” said Isa Sanusi, the organisation’s Nigeria director. “Some stay months at the mercy of gunmen in punishing situations.” Amnesty says victims face torture, starvation and sexual violence, and that fear itself is pushing children out of school, above all in rural areas.
The state’s answer comes in the language of ministries. Borno State Commissioner for Information and Internal Security Usman Tar said the government was using military and nonmilitary measures alike, conceding that the state has several security hotspots, including the Biu-Buratai axis and the Biu-Damboa-Sabon Gari area. “We are putting in place both kinetic and non-kinetic measures in order to overcome the problem,” Tar said. The state is giving the armed forces logistical support and civilian volunteers — “This has enabled us to dominate the hotspot axis,” he said — and deploying drones with thermal capabilities to watch the movement of criminals. Commuters are advised to avoid dangerous routes; officials visit bereaved and waiting families with condolences, and fixed sums of financial assistance flow through the State Emergency Management Agency and the state humanitarian agency. “Terrorism is a multinational problem,” Tar said, pointing to poverty, unemployment and illiteracy as its roots.
Security analyst Professor Khalifa Dikwa calls the situation simply “pathetic,” with no clear signs of an end. Kidnapping for ransom, he said, has “metamorphosed into a profit-making venture”: armed groups compete for territory, sometimes fighting one another for dominance of the forests, while ransom payments buy weapons and attract younger recruits. The cycle closes with cruel elegance — communities already poor must finance the very groups that prey on them, and a family that sells everything to free one relative may face a fresh demand when another is taken. Dikwa wants intelligence- and technology-driven operations to track ransom money, modern weapons and night-vision equipment for the security agencies, and better welfare for the soldiers on the front line.
Musa waits for his wife and his son. Laraba waits for her sister. Hena waits for the boy who packed his education and his father’s prayers for the road to Maiduguri. In Askira-Uba, twenty schoolrooms stand shut since May, and dozens of children are counted only in registers — unless counting is mercy, and silence is what comes after.