PRESS STATEMENT FROM THE MIDDLE BELT FORUM ON THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN OF MUSSA (15 July, 2026)

PRESS STATEMENT FROM THE MIDDLE BELT FORUM ON THE FORGOTTEN CHILDREN OF MUSSA (15 July, 2026)

The Middle Belt Forum (MBF) warmly commends the Federal Government, the security agencies and all those who played a role in the successful rescue of the school children and teachers abducted in Oyo State on May 15, 2026. Their safe return has brought great relief to their families and to Nigerians who followed their painful ordeal.

However, while we celebrate this success, we must remind the government that protecting the lives and property of citizens is not an act of charity. It is the primary reason government exists. Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), clearly states that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”

Every Nigerian, regardless of ethnicity, religion or location, deserves equal protection under this constitutional obligation.

Sadly, on the very same day terrorists abducted school children and teachers in Oyo State, Boko Haram terrorists attacked Government Day Secondary School, Mussa, in Askira/Uba Local Government Area (LGA) of Borno State. The school complex included a secondary school, a primary school and a nursery school. Forty-two innocent children were abducted, including toddlers as young as two years old.
What has followed since then is deeply disturbing.

While the entire nation rightly mobilised in support of the Oyo victims, the children of Mussa have suffered in almost complete silence. There has been little visible concern from the Borno State Government, the Federal Government, the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), civil society organisations and many human rights groups. The national media, which devoted extensive attention to the Oyo tragedy, has remained largely silent on the fate of these innocent children.

The Middle Belt Forum finds this painful silence difficult to understand and impossible to justify.
Even more heartbreaking is that the tragedy in Southern Borno did not end there.

On 29 June 2026, armed terrorists attacked Government Day Secondary School, Lassa, also in Askira/Uba LGA while students were sitting for their secondary school examinations. Thirty-six students (twenty-five girls and eleven boys) and one staff member were abducted. At least one teacher was killed during the attack.
Since the first reports of that horrific incident, the nation appears to have moved on, leaving the victims and their grieving families to suffer alone. It is as if these children have been forgotten simply because they come from what appears to be a neglected part of Nigeria.

This painful pattern did not begin this year. In August 2025, terrorists invaded Shikarkir in Chibok LGA in Southern Borno and abducted seven boys and girls. To this day, those children remain in captivity.
There has been no sustained national outrage, no coordinated campaign for their rescue and no consistent public pressure on government to secure their freedom.
The same story is repeated in Southern Kaduna.

On 6th April 2026, during Easter Sunday worship, armed Fulani bandits attacked three churches in Ariko Village in Kachia LGA. Seven innocent worshippers were murdered and thirty-seven people, mostly women and children, were abducted. Among those taken away was an elderly blind man. One of the kidnapped women even gave birth while in captivity. A few are said to have now died out of the share brutal conditions of their captivity.

Barely two weeks later, on 20 April 2026, Awon Community, also in Kachia Local Government Area, was attacked. Two citizens were killed and eleven others abducted.

All these victims remain in captivity, while their families continue to endure unimaginable pain with little reassurance from those entrusted with protecting them.
What makes this even more painful is that while innocent citizens remain abandoned in the hands of terrorists, enormous public resources continue to be devoted to programmes for so-called repentant Boko Haram members in Borno State and various rehabilitation initiatives for repentant bandits in Kaduna State.

The Middle Belt Forum believes that no government should appear more concerned about rehabilitating criminals than rescuing innocent citizens still held by those same criminals.

The continued silence of both the Federal Government and the governments of Borno and Kaduna States sends a dangerous message that some Nigerian lives matter more than others.

Have the children of Southern Borno and Southern Kaduna become invisible to their own country? Have their families been abandoned simply because they live in communities that rarely make national headlines?

Even if some people have chosen to ignore them, these innocent children remain members of the Nigerian family and deserve the same urgency, compassion and determination shown in other parts of the country.

The Middle Belt Forum therefore calls on the Governments of Borno and Kaduna States to demonstrate the same commitment and determination shown by the Oyo State Government throughout the period its school children were held captive. Families of the abducted deserve regular briefings on the efforts being made to secure the safe return of their loved ones.

We equally call on the Federal Government to fulfil its constitutional responsibility by intensifying rescue operations for all citizens still held by terrorists, including the school children of Mussa, Lassa, Shikarkir, Ariko, Awon and every other forgotten community across Nigeria.

The rescue of the Oyo victims has demonstrated that determined action can produce results. The same commitment must now be extended to every Nigerian still in captivity.

The Middle Belt Forum also urges the Nigerian Union of Teachers to demonstrate that its concern for the safety of teachers and school children is national in scope by extending the same solidarity to the victims in Southern Borno. If the union truly believes that every Nigerian teacher and every Nigerian child deserves equal protection, then it must speak with the same outrage and conviction on behalf of these forgotten pupils.

Finally, we appeal to civil society organisations, human rights groups, religious leaders, the media, development partners and the international community not to allow these innocent victims to disappear from public consciousness.
Every Nigerian child held hostage by enemies of society deserves to be remembered. Every hostage deserves hope. Every family deserves justice.

Signed: Luka Binniyat

Spokesman, Middle Belt Forum