On Monday, 14 September, many basic schools in Nigeria and neighbouring Benin are expected to reopen for a new academic session.
But for thousands of children living in vulnerable communities along the two countries’ northern borders, the new school year is beginning under a cloud of fear.
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In Benin, schools in 10 northern communes remained closed at the start of the academic year due to concerns about possible terrorist attacks, according to education authorities. Pupils in the affected communities were instead directed to schools in areas considered safer.
The authorities did not disclose the number of schools affected. Parents of some pupils confirmed the relocation to AFP, while Benin’s government spokesperson, Wilfried Houngbedj, earlier announced the decision. Education authorities said the affected areas were facing security concerns linked to armed groups operating near the country’s borders with Burkina Faso and Niger.
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In Nigeria, the story is the same. More than 20 communities around the vast Kainji forest corridors stretching through Niger and Kwara states, and sharing borders with Benin, have also come under growing security pressure.
Schools in these areas have been targeted by terrorist groups. Mukadas Dindey, a zonal education officer in Borgu LGA, Niger State, told PREMIUM TIMES that virtually all schools in terrorised villages have been closed down since 2025.
He said only schools in the garrison towns of Wawa and New Bussa will resume academic activities on 14 September. An official at the Niger State Ministry of Education corroborated him.
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“All those schools will remain closed for security reasons,” the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak with the press on the matter, said. “If any community feels it is safe to reopen their school, they will write a letter through their local government chairman to the Ministry of Homeland Security.”
The official added that the homeland security ministry will then notify security agencies to assess whether the school is safe to reopen, in line with the federal government’s safe school initiative.
An expanding landscape
The development offers a glimpse into how the expansion of armed groups across the Sahel is increasingly affecting basic services in communities far from the region’s traditional conflict theatres.
An analysis by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) found that violent events involving jihadist groups across Benin’s Alibori and Borgou departments, Niger’s Dosso region, and Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger and Kwara states increased by 86 per cent in 2025 compared with 2024. Associated fatalities increased by 262 per cent over the same period.
ACLED said the expansion of groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State has entered a new phase, with the borderlands becoming a growing theatre of jihadists’ activity. The data hub linked the development to limited state presence, weak border controls and declining regional security cooperation.
The Kainji axis, in particular, has recorded a series of deadly attacks in recent months.
In October 2025, this newspaper reported that Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda franchise in the Sahel, claimed its first attack in Nigeria, further blurring the security landscape in the Kainji axis, where multiple armed groups, including Boko Haram, Ansaru, bandits and Lakurawa, co-exist.
Nigeria’s Defence Minister, Christopher Musa, has also acknowledged the changing security environment along the frontier.
In July, Mr Musa said Nigeria was increasing military cooperation with Benin and Niger and creating another military sector to cover the tri-border area.
He said the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM was seeking to exploit routes through Benin into Nigeria.
“We’re opening another sector to cover the border between Nigeria, Benin Republic and Niger,” Mr Musa, a retired general, had said.
He said the arrangement would give Nigerian forces greater freedom to operate in the area.
Unending terror
Both jihadist groups and bandits continue to wreak terror, causing an escalating humanitarian crisis across borders.
A few days after a Boko Haram franchise led by Mallam Sadiku freed captives taken from Kwara (Woro and Nuku) and Niger (Konkoso, Pissa, Kasuwan Daji and other villages), about 600 Muslim worshippers, including children and women, were abducted at Dekara and surrounding villages.
The attack was blamed on Lakurawa, but that attribution is difficult to independently verify given the presence of multiple armed groups in the area.
For residents, however, the distinctions between jihadists, bandits and other armed groups often become less important when violence disrupts everyday life.
Shuaibu Ba, a displaced resident of Dekara, said it is hard to tell which group is which.
“I believe they are all partners and are determined to chase us away from our ancestral homes.”
Mr Ba lamented that schools, farms, markets and roads have become difficult to access. According to him, teachers are also targeted.
Education under threat
After the deadly November 2025 attack on St Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri, where more than 300 students were kidnapped, more schools have been targeted.
In June, terrorists set Dekera Central Primary School ablaze weeks after forcing the villagers to pay a N10 million levy.
“Days after they burnt the school, they came back to the community and kidnapped the headmaster,” Mr Ba narrated. “They took him to the forest and slaughtered him.”
Data compiled and analysed by PREMIUM TIMES show that mass school abductions have already spread well beyond the Northeast and Northwest, becoming a recurring national security problem.
Within President Bola Tinubu’s first three years in office, Nigeria recorded 13 mass school kidnapping incidents involving 674 students and staff, compared with three incidents involving at least 120 victims during the first three years of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
That represents a 333 per cent increase in the number of incidents and a 462 per cent increase in the number of victims.
The data also show how the geography of the crisis has changed.
Under Buhari, school abductions expanded from the insurgency-ravaged Northeast into the Northwest, where heavily armed bandit groups began targeting schools on a large scale. Under Tinubu, the threat has continued to spread southwards.
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