The School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) has said that failure to protect Nigerian children is the highest acceptance of governing without legitimacy.

In an open letter to the President, the founder of SPPG, Dr. Obiageli "Oby" Ezekwesili, noted that "connecting the dots can oftentimes be difficult for some people.

"She said, "Cancerous-level systemic corruption that metastasised into our country's political culture is totally imploding Nigeria. All our institutions, including our once strong military and judiciary, are now so terribly compromised and incapable of delivering on their mandate.

"The cause, according to her, includes endemic corruption, which gradually ate up the very values on which they were founded and once functioned, and rendered them "the impotent institutions we now know".

Noting the many times the Federal Government was warned that the disregard for good governance would do the country in, she quoted the United Nations Children's Fund and Save the Children data, which show that more than 1,680 students were abducted in 70 attacks between 2014 and 2022, with a further 816 students taken in 22 attacks just between 2023 and November 2025.

"After more than a decade of holding government accountable for the preventable atrocities committed against Nigeria's school children, one has reached a point where outrage no longer feels adequate and repetition feels like an insult to the memory of the lost," Ezekwesili said.

The latest group of abducted children, she asserted, are not just hostages of terrorists; "they are hostages of the unforgivable failure of governments and political class" that refuse to be moved, and to a people whose empathy has been steadily eroded.

"The children's abductions are not 'incidents'; they are proof of state collapse in its most basic duty – the protection of our greatest human asset – our children.

"After 10 years since ChibokGirls, the government of Nigeria has forfeited any claim to ignorance, surprise or learning curve. What we have is deliberate negligence, and deliberate negligence is a crime.

"Let it be known that to continue to govern without rescuing all our abducted children and protecting the rest in their schools is the highest acceptance of the President of Nigeria that he governs without legitimacy. Enough said," she added.

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