Zamfara state government has imposed a dusk to dawn curfew after about 73 students of a day secondary school were abducted by bandits forcing the state to shut down all schools.
The students, some of whom were writing their mock examinations, were abducted at Kaya Government Day Secondary School in Maradun on Wednesday afternoon.
The school’s vice-principal, Zayyanu Tsaba, was among those kidnapped.
The school authorities said more than 300 students were on the premises at the time of the attack.
Some of them ran when the bandits struck, escaping into nearby farmlands.
The latest incident comes exactly a week after another group of abducted students and staff from the College of Agriculture and Animal Science in Zamfara regained their freed.
The state governor Bello Matawalle has announced the closure of all schools and imposed a curfew from 6pm to 6am in 13 local government areas and 8pm to 6am in Gusau, the state capital.
State police commissioner Ayuba Elkana said officers have been deployed to work with the military to search for and rescue the victims.
The latest wave of abductions in Zamfara follows new stringent policies by governments of adjoining northwest states to cut the supply of essential commodities to bandits operating from forests.
This, along with a rise in attacks from the military, has made the bandits more desperate.
According to Unicef, more than 1,000 children have been abducted by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria since 2013, including 276 girls taken from their secondary school in the town of Chibok in 2014.
Unicef stressed that attacks on students and schools are not only reprehensible but a gross violation of the right to education.
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