Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili has attributed Nigeria’s worsening insecurity and repeated mass abductions of schoolchildren to what she described as pervasive, systemic corruption that has crippled the country’s institutions.
In a post on her X handle on Monday, Ezekwesili said corruption had so eroded Nigeria’s foundational values that key institutions, including the military and judiciary, have become severely compromised and incapable of fulfilling their mandates.
“Endemic corruption gradually ate up the very values on which they were founded, rendering them the impotent institutions we now know,” she wrote.
The co-convener of the BringBackOurGirls Movement noted that despite years of warnings about the consequences of neglecting good governance, the country is now grappling with the full impact of institutional decay.
Citing data from UNICEF and Save the Children, Ezekwesili stated that over 1,680 students were abducted in 70 attacks between 2014 and 2022, while another 816 students were kidnapped in 22 attacks between 2023 and November 2025.
She added that, more than a decade after the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014, outrage alone no longer suffices. The recurring kidnappings, she argued, are evidence of state failure rather than isolated security lapses.
“The latest group of abducted children are not just hostages of terrorists; they are hostages of the unforgivable failure of governments and a political class that refuse to be moved, and of a people whose empathy has been steadily eroded,” she said.
Ezekwesili emphasised that the persistent attacks demonstrate a collapse of the state in its most fundamental duty: protecting its greatest human asset, the children.
She concluded that, ten years after the Chibok abduction, the Federal Government can no longer claim ignorance or plead a learning curve.
