Nigeria: teachers on indefinite strike after the kidnapping of dozens of students in Oyo

The Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) declared an indefinite strike starting Monday, June 1, in Oyo State, in the southwest of Nigeria, to protest against the kidnapping on May 15, 2026, of dozens of students and their teachers by armed men in several rural communities. The Nigerian army accused jihadists linked to Boko Haram of being responsible for these abductions. Teachers had already held protests in the city of Ogbomoso on May 19, blocking schools to demand urgent protective measures.

The governor of Oyo State confirmed that six individuals have been arrested in the affected communities for alleged complicity with the kidnappers, along with three other “persons of interest.” Authorities had not yet announced the release of the hostages at the time of publication. The governor attributed the presence of armed groups in the southwest to increased military pressure on these groups in the northeast, which may have driven them to relocate their operations to other regions of the country.

The abduction on May 15 in Oyo State is part of a series of attacks against Nigerian schools that has extended, since late 2025, beyond the traditional northern states. On November 21, 2025, over 300 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped from the Saint-Mary boarding school in Papiri, in the Niger State – the largest school kidnapping since the 276 Chibok schoolgirls in 2014. About a hundred students escaped, and authorities announced in December the release of all remaining hostages, without specifying the conditions. A week before the Papiri attack, 25 schoolgirls were kidnapped from the Maga boarding school in Kebbi State.

The movement of armed groups towards the southwest – a region that had not experienced this type of attacks before – represents a shift in the security landscape that federal authorities had not publicly anticipated until now.

A Structural Phenomenon in Nigerian Education

Kidnappings for ransom targeting educational institutions have been documented in Nigeria since at least 2014, the year of the Chibok kidnapping. They involve two distinct logics: jihadist groups like Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) use kidnappings as tools of propaganda and funding, while non-ideological armed bandits use them exclusively to extract ransoms. Both logics coexist in the various affected states, complicating the attribution of attacks and the strategies for release.

According to the UN, through its Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, it was reaffirmed in November 2025 that “schools must be sanctuaries for education and not targets.” The NUT strike in Oyo State reflects the teachers’ loss of trust in the authorities’ ability to ensure their safety and that of their students in rural areas.