Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has strongly condemned the abduction of a school principal, a National Examinations Council (NECO) ad-hoc official, and students in Kogi State.
Atiku described the incident as clear evidence that the federal government has abdicated its primary constitutional responsibility to protect the lives, education, and future of Nigerian children.
The victims were reportedly abducted by armed men at Government Secondary School, Dekina , in Kogi State, while the students were writing their NECO examinations.
In a statement issued on Wednesday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku lamented that classrooms and examination halls, which should be sanctuaries of hope, have been turned into crime scenes due to worsening insecurity.
“A school principal should be preparing students for the future, not negotiating with kidnappers. A NECO official should be supervising examinations, not struggling for survival in the hands of bandits. Yet this has become the grim reality under a government that has normalized insecurity,” Atiku
The former Vice President linked the recurring attacks on educational institutions to poor governance and the misallocation of public funds under the President Bola Tinubu administration. He accused the government of treating the national budget as a tool for political patronage rather than national development.
“A national budget is not a political souvenir or a personal wish list; it is a solemn statement of priorities that aligns public expenditure with the needs of the people,” Atiku stated.
“But when the budget is treated like the personal ledger of a Bourdillon local champion, littered with questionable insertions, the inevitable result is underfunded and poorly secured schools, failing public institutions, and maladministration.”
Atiku pointed to what he described as “phantom priorities” in the national budget, citing an alleged N6.4 billion allocation for an “Aso Rock Supporters Club” for the 2026 World Cup, which he argued is completely divorced from the urgent security needs of the country.
The opposition leader further criticized the administration’s policies on education, arguing that the government is waging a two-pronged assault on the sector through economic exclusion and security failures.
“First, they price poor children out of classrooms through unprecedented increases in WAEC and NECO examination fees, and then they fail to protect the few who manage to remain in school. Together, these actions amount to a systematic destruction of the dreams of an entire generation,” he added.
According to Atiku, the reactive nature of the government’s security response has emboldened criminals, who now view schools as soft and profitable targets.
Demanding the immediate and unconditional rescue of the abducted principal, official, and students, Atiku urged the federal government to move beyond issuing routine statements of condemnation and implement measurable security reforms.
“History will not remember how many press releases this government issued after each abduction. History will remember whether it protected Nigeria’s children or abandoned them,” the statement concluded.
