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"They Hid Inside the Bush": Gunmen Raid Kogi Orphanage at Midnight, Abduct 23 Children and Proprietor's Wife, Demand ₦150m Ransom
In a devastating first for Nigeria's kidnapping epidemic, gunmen have targeted an orphanage — a sanctuary meant to protect the most vulnerable — and stolen away its children. Late on the night of Saturday, April 26, 2026, armed men descended on the Dahallukitab Group of Schools in the remote Zariagi settlement along Kabba Junction in Lokoja, Kogi State. Shooting sporadically to sow terror and scatter any resistance, they seized 23 pupils and the wife of the proprietor, Mallam Mohammed Tanko Tajudeen, before vanishing into the dense bush that surrounds the isolated facility. By Monday, 15 of those children had been rescued — or, depending on whom you ask, had escaped into the forest on their own. Eight more remain unaccounted for, and a ₦150 million ransom demand hangs over the heads of their families like a death sentence.
The attack, which began around 11:00 p.m. and triggered a distress call to police at 11:45 p.m., represents the first time an orphanage has been deliberately targeted in Nigeria's long-running kidnapping crisis — a grim milestone that has shaken child welfare advocates and security analysts alike. Kogi State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Kingsley Femi Fanwo, confirmed the details in a statement issued on Monday, describing the incident as "unfortunate and avoidable" and commending the "gallantry and professionalism" of security agencies whose "swift and coordinated response" led to the rescue of 15 victims. But even as the government framed the outcome as a qualified success, a deeply uncomfortable question has emerged: was this a rescue mission — or did the children save themselves?
Escaped or Rescued? The Disputed Narrative
Within hours of the government's announcement, the proprietor of the school, Mohammed Tajudeen, offered a starkly different account of what transpired. Speaking to journalists during an on-the-spot assessment of the ravaged facility, he stated bluntly: "Those who are available now ran away when the kidnappers came; they were not rescued, but they escaped. They hid inside the bush." A teacher at the school, Isah Hajarat, corroborated this version, telling Leadership that "some of the children managed to escape during the attack."
The police narrative, by contrast, described a coordinated intervention. According to the Kogi State Police Command's official statement, the Divisional Police Officer in charge of 'B' Division Lokoja "swiftly mobilized a joint team of security operatives" who "immediately mapped out strategies and commenced coordinated rescue operations." The Commissioner of Police, CP Naziru Bello Kankarofi, later confirmed that 17 victims were rescued through "joint efforts by security agencies, local hunters, and vigilantes." The discrepancy between the government's rescue narrative and the proprietor's escape narrative may reflect a genuine operational grey area — police may well have secured the area and recovered children who had initially fled on their own. But the competing claims also illustrate the deep trust deficit between communities and the security agencies tasked with protecting them.
A School in the Shadows: The Illegal Orphanage Problem
One fact that is not disputed: the Dahallukitab Group of Schools was operating illegally. Commissioner Fanwo stated unequivocally that the facility was "operating illegally in a remote, bushy environment without registration with the State Government and without the knowledge of relevant authorities and security agencies." CP Kankarofi reinforced this, noting the school was "in a remote forested area with no access road, no perimeter fencing, and inadequate structures" and was "not captured in our security framework, which made proactive surveillance difficult."
The proprietor has pushed back, insisting the school is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and the Ministry of Women Affairs, and claiming to have documents to prove it. Regardless of the registration status, the security reality is incontestable: a facility housing dozens of children was located in an isolated, forested area with no security infrastructure, no perimeter fencing, and no access road — an arrangement that made it both invisible to authorities and indefensible against armed attackers. The Kogi State Government has since warned that establishing orphanages and schools in vulnerable locations without proper registration and notification to authorities "poses serious security risks, especially in the current security climate" and "not only undermines safety standards but also exposes innocent children to avoidable dangers."
The Ransom and the Manhunt
As search operations expanded across the forests of Kogi State, the kidnappers made contact — not with a political demand or an ideological statement, but with the cold arithmetic of Nigeria's kidnapping economy: ₦150 million. The demand was communicated to the proprietor, whose two wives are among those still held in captivity. The ongoing operation involves a multi-agency coalition of police, military, local hunters, and vigilante groups combing the surrounding forests. "As we speak, our teams are combing the surrounding forests. These criminals do not stay in one location, so we are intensifying surveillance and collaborating with nearby communities," CP Kankarofi said.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but security sources told the BBC that Kogi State has a functional Boko Haram cell, and there have been several violent attacks in the area. The region — Nigeria's north-central zone — has become an increasingly active theatre for both jihadist insurgents and profit-driven kidnapping gangs, who often operate with overlapping tactics even when their motivations differ.
The Broader Horror: Nigeria's Kidnap Epidemic Claims the Most Vulnerable
The targeting of an orphanage represents a grim escalation, but it does not emerge from a vacuum. Mass school kidnappings have become one of the defining horrors of Nigeria's security crisis. In November 2025, more than 300 students and their teachers were abducted from a Catholic secondary school in Niger State, also in the north-central region. The Dahallukitab raid occurred just hours after gunmen abducted 15 students from a school along Akwando Road in Kafanchan, Kaduna State — a simultaneous attack that underscored the organized, cross-state coordination of kidnapping networks.
Nigeria has made paying ransoms illegal, but the law has done little to stem the tide; kidnapping for ransom remains one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the country. The government's policy response — criminalizing payments while failing to secure vulnerable institutions — has created a perverse dynamic: families are effectively forced to choose between breaking the law and abandoning their loved ones to captors whose brutality is well-documented. For the proprietor of Dahallukitab, that choice is now a living nightmare. Two of his wives and several of his students remain in the hands of men who have already named their price — and the clock is ticking.
A Scandal of Visibility and Neglect
The Dahallukitab orphanage raid is not just another kidnapping. It is a scandal of visibility — or more precisely, of invisibility. A facility housing dozens of orphaned children was allowed to operate in a forest, without perimeter fencing, without security, without the knowledge of the authorities whose job it is to protect them. Whether the children who escaped did so because of police action or despite the absence of it, the fundamental failure remains the same: the state did not see them, and therefore could not shield them. Until Nigeria's regulatory machinery is capable of identifying and securing every institution responsible for vulnerable children — registered or not — orphans will remain, as they were on Sunday night, easy prey in the bush.
Stay tuned to Unuevbo TV for continuing coverage of Nigeria's kidnapping crisis and the search for the remaining Dahallukitab captives.
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