…Widow of Slain Kebbi Vice Principal Recounts Bloody End of Her Husband
…How the 25 Girls Were Taken in a Night Raid
By Peter Fregene
The terror that swept through Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State in the early hours of Monday will not leave the memory of Amina Hassan anytime soon. It was the night she watched armed men force their way into her home, command her husband to “say his last prayers,” and then execute him with a single shot to the head. Minutes later, the attackers stormed the student hostels and abducted 25 schoolgirls in what is now Kebbi’s second major school abduction in four years.
Amina is the widow of the slain vice principal, Hassan Makuku, who was murdered at about 3:30 a.m. when gunmen in military camouflage descended on the isolated school community. Speaking through tears, she relived the nightmare: the moment she heard strange noises outside, the seconds spent trying to wake her husband, and the terror of watching the intruders burst into their home.
According to her, the attackers, whom she identified as Fulani by their language, wore army-style uniforms and moved with lethal precision. “They forced the door open and woke him,” she said, recounting the moment her life changed forever. “They asked him to say his last prayers. While he was doing it, one of them pulled out his gun and shot my husband at close range. He died immediately.”
The killing did not end their cruelty. Amina said one of the bandits dragged her by the hand, attempting to take her away. “I told them to leave me alone, that I would not go with them since they had killed the father of my children,” she said. It was at that moment, as she struggled, that their daughter emerged from hiding. Distracted, the bandits left Amina and seized the girl instead, dragging her into the darkness along with dozens of other terrified students.
By then, the armed men had already killed the school’s night guard.
From the staff quarters, the attackers fanned out toward the Adamu Aliero Hostel, one of the girls’ dormitories. There, they stormed the rooms, randomly selecting students and ordering them out at gunpoint. Those who attempted to hide were warned they would be killed. Within minutes, 25 girls had been rounded up and marched into the bush.
The attack has drawn comparisons to the June 2021 mass abduction at Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, also in Kebbi State, where more than 100 students and staff were seized. That earlier tragedy ended only after years of negotiation, ransom payments, and unimaginable trauma. Some of the abducted girls were forced into marriages and returned with babies, long after the nation had moved on.
Monday’s raid reopens those old wounds. It raises urgent questions about security gaps in rural schools, the resurgence of bandit operations in the North-West, and the haunting reality that the cycle of violence of mass kidnappings, ransom negotiations, and prolonged captivity remains far from over.
As search operations intensify and families wait in anguish, Amina Hassan stands as the face of Kebbi’s latest tragedy. She lost her husband, nearly lost her daughter, and survived a horror she did nothing to deserve.
And it is clear that she remembers most are the last words the killers forced upon her husband: “say your last prayers”… before ending his life and plunging an entire community into grief.
KTH Daily will continue to follow this developing story.