The Nigerian Senate has intensified its investigation into the troubled Safe School Initiative, summoning top government officials to account for the $30 million in funding that has vanished amid escalating school kidnappings. The ad hoc committee, chaired by Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, held its maiden sitting on December 3, 2025, where it issued orders for Finance Minister Wale Edun, Education Minister Tunji Alausa, and Defence Minister Gen Christopher Musa to appear on December 9, 2025. This comes amid fresh outrage over the back-to-back abductions in Kebbi and Niger States, which have left grieving parents and shuttered schools across the north.
Launched in May 2014 at the World Economic Forum, the Safe School Initiative was introduced in response to the horrifying abduction of 276 schoolgirls from their dorms at the hands of Boko Haram in Chibok, Borno State. The abduction, which left over 100 girls still missing today, highlighted Nigeria’s crumbling education security, especially in the northeast where insurgents view Western schooling as a threat.
To address the growing crisis, the federal government, backed by international partners such as the United Nations and private donors, rolled out a multi-stakeholder plan aimed at fortifying schools. This plan included installing perimeter fences, deploying armed guards, training staff on emergency drills, and setting up rapid response teams. The first phase targeted 500 high-risk schools, beginning with a pilot of 30 in the northeast, and aimed to cover 18 vulnerable states and protect over 42,000 schools that lacked basic security infrastructure.
Initial funding for the initiative kicked off with a $10 million seed from global pledges, swelling to over $30 million mobilized between 2014 and 2021, with contributions from the UK, the EU, and others. Domestically, the federal government also pledged a N144 billion allocation from 2023 to 2026 to roll out security in 48 schools per high-risk state, broken down into annual installments.
However, despite these promises, implementation has faltered. In 2023 alone, only N15 billion of the promised funding was disbursed, leaving states and donors to scramble for the rest. By late 2025, the program had stalled in 30 states, leaving thousands of schools exposed and fueling a spike in out-of-school children, particularly in the north, where school enrollment has dropped due to safety concerns.
Since the program’s inception, over 1,680 schoolchildren have been abducted, and 180 facilities have been raided by bandits, terrorists, and armed gangs. Save the Children reported at least 10 major school kidnappings since January 2024 alone, involving approximately 670 children. Human Rights Watch has pointed to poor coordination between security agencies and a lack of funding as the main culprits behind the initiative’s failure, which has left schools vulnerable to attacks.
Despite significant financial commitments, early warnings often go unheeded, and infrastructure upgrades are delayed, leaving gaps that bandits exploit to demand ransom sums running into millions of naira.
The trigger for the Senate’s current probe stems from two particularly horrific incidents in November 2025. On November 18, gunmen on motorcycles stormed Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi State, killing the vice principal before abducting 25 schoolgirls aged 10 to 18. Though two girls managed to escape, 23 remain missing as of early December, and no group has claimed responsibility. Local whispers suggest bandit networks are operating in the area.
Just three days later, on November 21, the nightmare repeated itself at St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School in Papiri, Niger State, near Kainji Lake. Armed men overpowered the skeleton security detail, abducting 303 students and 12 teachers nearly half the school’s enrollment. Approximately 50 children escaped, but over 200 are still in captivity. A video surfaced with a Hausa-speaking militant boasting of plans to abduct more, including politicians and even President Bola Tinubu.
The attacks have forced the Niger State government to shut all schools indefinitely, while federal Unity Colleges across 47 sites have locked their gates.
These attacks have sparked outrage and renewed scrutiny of the Safe School Initiative, especially after claims by Education Minister Alausa in May 2025 that there had been “12 months without a single school abduction” under President Tinubu’s watch. Parents in Papiri had begged for troops weeks before the attack, but no assistance arrived—echoing a pattern where intelligence fails to translate into action.
The Christian Association of Nigeria condemned the lapses, noting that most of the victims in Papiri were Christians in a Muslim-majority area, although the violence affects all faiths. Globally, the UN’s deputy chief called on nations to safeguard schools, declaring them “sanctuaries, not targets.”
Enter the Senate’s 18-member ad hoc committee, formed on November 27, 2025, and chaired by Senator Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia North, APC). During the committee’s first sitting on December 3, Kalu made it clear: “It is unacceptable that our schools remain soft targets for terrorists and kidnappers.” The committee will be conducting a thorough audit of every dollar and naira spent since the initiative’s inception in 2014.
The scope of the probe will cover everything from tracking funding flows and scrutinizing security deployments to inspecting school infrastructure and donor agreements. Kalu emphasized that this was not a witch-hunt but a push for transparency to “re-engineer” the initiative, ensuring schools are safe for children once again.
