KIDNAPPED, NEGOTIATED, OR RESCUED?

By George Omagbemi Sylvester | Published by saharaweeklyng.com

“The messy politics behind the release of Kebbi’s schoolgirls and why Nigeria’s silence fuels banditry.”

On November 17, gunmen brazenly stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Senior Secondary School (GGCSS), Maga, in Danko-Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State, killed a school official and whisked away 25 female students. For a week the country waited and then on November 25–26 the girls were reported freed. What should have been a straightforward moment of national relief instead exposed Nigeria’s deepest vulnerabilities: conflicting official narratives, a combustible mix of secrecy and rumor and the unmistakable risk that negotiation as policy will continue to fatten criminal cartels.

The federal government and state authorities insist the girls were rescued through a coordinated security operation. President Bola Tinubu spoke of a successful rescue; Kebbi’s governor, Nasir Idris, declared no ransom was paid and lauded the military, the Department of State Services (DSS) and other agencies for bringing the girls home unharmed. Those are the accounts the state has chosen to burn into the public record.

As almost immediately a competing story re-emerged: circulating video footage and statements attributed to the abductors claim otherwise. In the clips and in commentary that followed, armed men who held the girls are heard saying the students were released because a NEGOTIATED UNDERSTANDING (not a military raid) CONCLUDED the MATTER. One bandit in the footage reportedly mocked government claims of a forceful rescue and told the girls they were being returned “based on peace deals.” If authentic, that footage tells a familiar story: the state insisting on a clean, kinetic narrative while shadow deals with criminal actors are quietly sewn up.

This contradiction matters. It is not a mere semantic skirmish between the rhetoric of rescue and the fact of negotiation. Negotiations and ransom payments change incentives. They transform violent entrepreneurs into providers of “security” and convert abduction into a profitable, repeatable enterprise. Academic and policy studies have documented how ad hoc settlements and clandestine payments enable bandit networks to consolidate territorial footholds and expand targeting strategies. A 2025 DIIS (Danish Institute for International Studies) analysis and other field studies warn that repeated, opaque deals with armed gangs institutionalize impunity and hollow out state authority.

Voices across Nigeria have responded with fury and alarm. Some parliamentarians now openly demand sanctions for officials who negotiate with bandits. Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu has proposed criminal penalties for government officials who engage in ransom negotiations or unstructured amnesty deals through an effort to place legal guardrails around what many believe has become an unofficial marketplace for peace. If adopted, such a law would be an admission that informal bargaining has become frequent enough to warrant formal prohibition.

Civil society and security experts make the same blunt point: paying or tacitly allowing negotiations may save lives in the short term, but it also invites more abductions. Hannatu Pamela Ishaya of the Hannis Foundation memorably warned that ransom payments “empower” kidnappers and encourage repetition — a paradox of mercy that ends up imperilling more children. That observation is not rhetorical; it is borne out by the steady tempo of school kidnappings across the northwest and middle belt — regions where criminal gangs treat abduction as a core revenue stream.

Two immediate consequences flow from the government’s mixed messaging. First, credibility is eroded. When the public receives one version from the presidency and another from footage and eyewitnesses, trust in official institutions suffers. Trust is the fragile currency of state legitimacy; once spent, it is difficult to restore. Second, ambiguity undermines accountability. If deals are cut in shadow, neither legislatures nor oversight bodies can properly scrutinize who authorised payments or why soldiers were allegedly withdrawn from vulnerable outposts shortly before attacks; a charge Kebbi’s governor has demanded the military investigate, till date we’ve not heard any report come back. Nigeria is business as usual.

We must also confront the operational reality: in many rural theatres the security architecture is simply inadequate. Intelligence gaps, poor logistics and shallow troop deployment create conditions in which negotiating becomes a tactical default. That does not excuse covert deals; rather, it underscores the need for a coherent national strategy that combines prevention, prosecution and protection. Researchers who have mapped bandit networks across northwest Nigeria show that without integrated community intelligence, economic alternatives, and credible prosecution, tactical rescues or transactions will not stop the cycle.

So what should Nigeria do now is beyond expressions of relief? First, transparency. If negotiations occurred, the public is entitled to a full accounting: who negotiated, under what authority and what concessions (if any) were made. A blank wall of silence invites speculation, corrodes trust and allows destructive bargains to be normalized. If no ransom was paid and military action achieved the rescue, the security agencies must present verifiable evidence (timing, assets deployed, chain of command) to restore confidence. Either way, concealment is not a policy.

Second, law. The House’s proposal to penalise officials who negotiate with bandits is blunt but necessary if implemented judiciously. The state must remove perverse incentives. Where local governments or individuals have previously paid ransoms, the federal government must step in with legal clarity and victim support, not punishment alone. Criminal prosecutions should target the kingpins and the corrupt enablers who profit from prolonging insecurity.

Third, prevention. Military and policing responses must be married to community resilience: better roads and surveillance, reliable communications in rural areas, community policing that integrates local trackers and credible witnesses, education investments that harden boarding facilities, and economic programmes that shrink the recruitment pool for bandit groups. As scholars note, an exclusively kinetic response is necessary but insufficient. Lasting security requires reducing the economic and social conditions that produce banditry.

Finally, moral clarity. Nigerian leaders must decide whether they will accept a trade in which safety is bought one incident at a time. The alternative is uncomfortable: deny payment, risk lives in the short run and reckon with the political cost; or concede payment and let the market for lives expand. Neither choice is painless. Though continued secrecy and equivocation will only worsen the calculus for future victims.

The return of the Kebbi girls must be celebrated and their welfare prioritised such as medical checks, counselling and swift family reunification are imperative; but the celebration must not mute inquiry. Every rescued child carries the story of how she was taken and how she came back. If those narratives are shaped by statements of both state rescue and bandit negotiation, Nigerians deserve the truth in full. The nation cannot both claim strength and tolerate shadow commerce in human freedom.

If Nigeria hopes to end the steady procession of school abductions, it must start by refusing the convenience of half-truths. RESCUE without ACCOUNTABILITY is a REPRIEVE, not a SOLUTION. Negotiation without oversight is a subsidy to crime. And silence in the face of conflicting accounts is the state’s most expensive currency. The girls are home but let that not be the last chapter. Let it be the moment when POLICY, LAW and COURAGE converge to make sure no more classrooms fall silent.