“When toddlers are dragged from classrooms into terrorist camps, a nation’s schools have officially become processing centers for ransom.” With this scathing assessment, the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) fiercely attacked President Bola Tinubu’s administration on Friday over a terrifying surge in mass school kidnappings and the crushing cost of living.
- +IMN blasts Tinubu over mass kidnappings, economic hardship
Speaking at a press briefing marking the global Ashura commemoration in Jos, Plateau State, the group demanded an immediate military rescue response and total systemic reform.
Speaking at a press briefing marking the global Ashura commemoration in Jos, Plateau State, the group demanded an immediate military rescue response and total systemic reform. Group leaders declared that rampant banditry and government failure have left the nation’s most vulnerable citizens completely exposed, transforming Nigerian classrooms into operational hubs for terrorist extortion.
Muhammad Auwal Gangare Sheikh , the IMN representative for Plateau State who led the briefing at Zakzaky Hall, singled out the systemic abduction of students as the most painful indicator of state failure. He pointed specifically to devastating mass abductions in Oyo State, where young pupils and teachers were dragged into forests, alongside ongoing security crises crippling communities in the North-West and North-East regions.
Beyond physical insecurity, the IMN sharply criticized the federal government for “bad governance,” identifying the soaring cost of living as the primary crisis crushing the average Nigerian. Connecting the current socioeconomic turmoil to the religious significance of Ashura which marks the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Imam Husain Gangare stated that the commemoration serves as a living manifesto for human dignity and an uncompromising refusal to pledge allegiance to corrupt leadership that plunders the commonwealth while the masses bleed.
The movement explicitly demanded that the federal and state governments immediately deploy all available resources to rescue all remaining schoolchildren and teachers currently held in terrorist camps across Oyo, Zamfara, Borno, and other states. Concluding the briefing, the IMN called for Islah the total reform of a decaying society and urged the Tinubu administration to urgently address the economic and security deficits to prevent further national collapse.
