The Yobe State governor, Mai Mala Buni, has ordered the closure of all boarding schools across the state because of the very real fear that more female pupils might be kidnapped.

This follows the abduction of 279 girls from their boarding school in the remote Jangebe village in the northwestern state of Zamfara last week. The girls – who attended the Government Girls Junior Secondary School − were released unharmed on Sunday after talks between government officials and the kidnappers.

CBC News reported that at the time of the attack, one resident had told AP that the gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the mass abduction.

Although Buni had ordered all boarding schools to be closed, he said this would exclude senior pupils because they were about to write their West African Senior School Certificate examinations.

RNI reporter Sharrif Bura visited boarding schools in Damaturu in Yobe State.

Some pupils had left already and others were preparing to leave. Outside the gates anxious parents were waiting to take their children home.

Earlier, pupils from the Buni Yadi Girls Secondary School had been transferred to Damaturu Government Girls Secondary School because of the recent intensive attacks. However, both schools are now closed.

Teachers, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was necessary to close the schools because of the attacks. They said the schools should remain closed until safety measures were put in place.

Some pupils said they would have preferred to stay in school instead of being sent home. They had already spent months away from school because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Meanwhile, the Adamawa State commissioner of education, Umar Iya Daware, told RNI that the government would put workable measures in place to protect all pupils from harm.

There have been several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years.

An AP report said that on Saturday, 24 students, six staff and eight relatives were released after being abducted on February 17 from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger state. In December, more than 300 schoolboys from a secondary school in Kankara, in northwestern Nigeria, were taken and later released.

The most notorious kidnapping was in April 2014, when members of the Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’way Wa’l-Jihād (JAS), also known as Boko Haram, abducted  276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok in Borno state. More than 100 of those girls are still missing, according to the AP report.