Student’s Struggle: Torture and Survival in Northern Schools

Published: 17 April 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online

In the dusty outskirts of Maiduguri, 19-year-old Musa (not his real name) sits in a makeshift classroom, his left sleeve pinned back where his hand should be. As Pope Leo XIV prepares to arrive in Nigeria tomorrow as part of his “Sovereign Dignity” tour, Musa’s story has emerged as a harrowing symbol of the “educational apartheid” facing northern Nigeria. For Musa, the simple act of pursuing a Western education wasn’t just a challenge—it was a death-defying gamble that cost him his limb and nearly his life during a brutal kidnapping by insurgents three years ago.

Musa’s ordeal began in 2023 when he was one of 40 students abducted from a secondary school in Borno State. During six months of captivity, he was subjected to systematic torture designed to “break his will” and force him to renounce his studies. “They told me that the pen was a weapon of the infidels,” Musa told reporters through a translator. When he refused to stop practicing his English lessons in the sand, his captors used a machete to sever his left hand—his writing hand—as a “permanent lesson” to others. “I didn’t just lose my hand,” he says, staring at the scarred stump. “I lost the ability to hold my dreams.”

The student’s struggle is a microcosm of a deepening crisis in Nigerian education. Despite government promises of “Safe Schools,” UNICEF reports that over 1,500 schools across the north remain closed or destroyed due to the decade-long insurgency and the more recent wave of “banditry” fueled by the regional economic collapse. For those who remain in school, the fear is constant. The “ransom economy” has made students a lucrative commodity, with families often forced to sell their homes or land to pay for the release of their children, only for the traumatized youth to return to a system that lacks even basic psychological support.

To bypass the threat of kidnapping, many students like Musa have turned to “shadow schools”—unregistered, mobile learning centers that operate in the early hours of the morning or late at night in private homes.

Category	Impact of Conflict (2023-2026)
School Closures	Over 1,200 institutions in Borno and Yobe states.
Out-of-School Children	Estimated 18.5 million (highest in the world).
Teacher Shortage	35% decrease in active staff due to targeted killings.
Student Abductions	2,400+ documented cases in 36 months.

Against all odds, Musa has taught himself to write with his right hand. His progress is slow, and the phantom pains often make it difficult to concentrate, but he remains one of the top students in his informal cohort. His ambition is to study law, a choice driven by a desire to hold his tormentors—and the state that failed to protect him—accountable. “Every word I write now is an act of war against the people who took my hand,” he says.

As Pope Leo XIV prepares to meet with survivors of violence in Abuja this weekend, Musa’s story is being used by human rights groups to demand a “Global Education Marshall Plan” for West Africa. The Pope is expected to address the “cruel paradox” of a nation with vast oil wealth that cannot guarantee the safety of its youngest citizens. For Musa, the high-level visits provide a fleeting sense of visibility, but his daily reality remains a grueling uphill battle. In the classrooms of northern Nigeria, the pen may be mightier than the sword, but for many, the price of that victory is written in blood.

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