DR May-2.

The other day, as Muslim students observing Ramadan prepared to break their fast with iftar in the company of friends—many walking in the warm evening from dormitories or the library to the cafeteria—gunshots rang out at approximately 8:15 p.m. Initially, the sound did not greatly perturb some, given the institution’s location atop a hill near a major highway, notorious for frequent assaults on motorists by armed robbers. However, this instance proved to be of an altogether different magnitude.

Armed men, some clad in camouflage attire seemingly intended to deceive students into believing they were military personnel, seized 23 individuals—comprising 18 students and five staff members—confiscated their phones, and drove them into the surrounding bushland. A number of the abducted female students were only partially clothed. Many were barefoot. The group was forced to walk for hours until they reached awaiting motorbikes, upon which they were transported, in pairs or trios, to a remote encampment housing other kidnapped Nigerians.

Three days later, the kidnappers conveyed a chilling communiqué to the victims’ parents: the remains of Dorathy Yohanna, Precious Nwakacha, and Sadiq Yusuf Sanga had been deposited beside a road.

Yohanna, a political science major in her third year, had turned 23 just days before her abduction. The evening prior to her death, she wept and prayed, plagued by her mother’s misgivings about her return to Greenfield due to growing security concerns. Nwakacha, a 19-year-old third-year accounting student, was known for her articulateness and confidence—traits that made her classmates believe she was aptly chosen by the kidnappers to deliver a message to the parents. Sanga, studying cyber security in his third year, had recounted a dream on the morning of his death: three people were going home, and he was among them.

In Nigeria, two popular aphorisms address the nature of awakening: “When you wake up is your morning,” and “You cannot wake a person pretending to be asleep.” Though I knew few details when I first heard of the deaths, they functioned as a personal reckoning—a morning of sorts.

Greenfield was not an outlier. Schools remain soft targets for mercenaries and insurgents, and this atrocity was not intrinsically more horrifying than the slaughter of 59 students at the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi in 2014. What unsettled me most about the Greenfield kidnappings was their transactional character; unlike the ideologically motivated massacre at Buni Yadi, this was a macabre monetisation of human life. The ransom demand—800 million naira (approx. $2 million)—was unfathomable in a country where average monthly incomes range from $190 to $355.

Gripped by a sense of helpless urgency, I reached out to feminist activists Olabukunola Williams and Chioma Agwuegbo. That Nigerian society, particularly its women, remained largely unresponsive to this atrocity felt unthinkable. The three of us conceived a strategy: mobilising women, leveraging their influence within homes and communities, to rally Nigerians and compel the government to fulfill its constitutional duty—hence, the ‘Secure Our Lives’ campaign. Our objective was to pressure the state to acknowledge the crisis and dismantle the lucrative machinery of kidnapping.

Difficult Words & Meanings

  • Perturbing – Causing anxiety or uneasiness.

  • Camouflage – Clothing designed to blend in with surroundings, often military.

  • Communiqué – An official announcement or statement.

  • Aphorism – A pithy observation that contains a general truth.

  • Transactional – Relating to the exchange or trade of goods/services.

  • Macabre – Disturbing and horrifying due to involvement with death or injury.

  • Unfathomable – Incomprehensible or beyond understanding.

  • Monetisation – The process of converting something into money or revenue.

 Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level - 13

 Word count - 588.


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