Nigeria’s defence minister, retired General Christopher Musa, has promised that the federal government will secure the release of all citizens currently held by kidnappers, as the country grapples with a fresh wave of abductions that has left schools, families and communities in a state of fear.
Speaking on Saturday after receiving the Southern Kaduna Grand Commander award at the 2026 Southern Kaduna Festival, Musa acknowledged that an unspecified number of Nigerians remained in captivity and pledged that the state would not abandon them.
“Wherever they are, they will know that we are always with them,” he said. “We will do whatever it takes to ensure that we free them.”
The assurance came against a backdrop of mounting public anxiety. Just days earlier, a vice principal abducted during coordinated attacks on schools in the Ogbomoso area of Oyo State had made a direct public appeal to President Bola Tinubu and Oyo State governor Seyi Makinde, urging officials to open negotiations with her captors. Folawe Alamu, deputy head of Community Grammar School in Ahoro-Esinle, was among teachers and pupils seized by gunmen fifteen days ago in raids that have reignited longstanding concerns about the vulnerability of Nigerian schools.
Musa did not address the Oyo abductions directly. Instead, he struck a broadly optimistic tone, insisting that unity, faith and community cooperation would ultimately defeat the criminal networks behind the kidnappings. “No evil can overcome us because God is on our side,” he told the gathering.
The minister urged residents to share intelligence with security agencies, warning that criminal gangs were being sustained from within communities themselves. “We have people that are giving them information, we have people that are their informants, we have people that are giving them logistics,” he said, calling on citizens to identify and report such individuals without delay.
Musa also framed security as the essential precondition for Nigeria’s economic ambitions, describing the armed forces as committed to “defending the nation’s territorial integrity and creating a secure environment in which citizens can pursue their legitimate aspirations.”
The ceremony itself offered a moment of personal reflection for the minister, who grew up in the Southern Kaduna region. Accepting the award, he said recognition from one’s own community carried a weight that external honours could not match. “It speaks not only to achievement, but also to belonging,” he said.
Yet for many Nigerians, the minister’s words — however warmly delivered — will be measured against a security landscape that has stubbornly resisted improvement. School abductions, once associated primarily with the north-east, have spread southward with alarming regularity. Families of those still in captivity are waiting not for speeches, but for results.
