Education becomes another casualty of Nigeria's security crisis

Kogi State government announced Tuesday it was shutting down all schools—public and private—following unspecified security alerts. The closure is temporary, officials said, calling it a "preventive measure" while authorities implement "protective measures."

No details on the nature of the threat. No timeline for reopening. No clarity on what "protective measures" means. Just another week where Nigerian children can't attend school because their government cannot guarantee their safety.

For parents, this means sudden childcare scrambles—finding someone to watch kids while trying to work, or losing income to stay home. For students, especially those preparing for WAEC, NECO, or JAMB exams, it means lost learning time they can't recover. For teachers, it means uncertainty about when they'll return to work.

This is the third major school closure in Nigeria's Middle Belt and Northern states this academic year. Zamfara shut schools in November after abduction threats. Niger State closed schools in several LGAs in December following attacks. Now Kogi joins the pattern.

The closures reveal a grim calculation: it's easier for state governments to shut down education than to secure learning environments. Safer to keep children home than risk another mass abduction that generates national headlines and exposes state incapacity.

But temporary closures create permanent damage. Students in insecure states are falling behind peers in safer regions. Educational inequality widens not because of resources alone but because violence determines who can access learning. Northern Nigeria's education crisis compounds as insecurity adds another barrier beyond poverty and infrastructure gaps.

Kogi's "preventive" closure sounds responsible until you realise prevention should mean making schools safe, not making them empty. The state has troops, police, and security budgets. Yet the default response to threats is shutting down rather than securing.

For the children whose education is now hostage to violence they didn't cause and can't escape, "temporary" closures accumulate into lost years. And Nigeria wonders why 20 million children remain out of school when the state's answer to insecurity is closing classrooms rather than protecting them.