Suspected ISWAP terrorists attacked Government Day Secondary School in Lassa, Askira/Uba Local Government Area of Borno State on Monday morning, abducting an unspecified number of students who were mid-way through their NECO examinations, killing at least one teacher, and injuring another. The gunmen arrived on motorcycles on a busy market day, rode through the Lassa market, and headed straight for the school, where they opened fire and seized students from their classrooms.
What Happened
At approximately 9 a.m. on Monday, June 29, heavily armed insurgents — confirmed by the Borno State Police Command as ISWAP — stormed Government Day Secondary School while students were sitting the National Examinations Council (NECO) Senior School Certificate Examination. Firing sporadically and causing widespread panic, the gunmen abducted multiple students and women who were selling food on the school premises. At least one teacher was shot dead and another wounded during the assault.
Borno State Police spokesperson ASP Nahum Daso confirmed the attack and said security forces engaged the assailants, preventing what could have been a far larger abduction.
The attackers are reported to have been dressed in military camouflage uniforms, which may have helped them move through the community before residents could raise alarm. Lassa is a market town and Monday is its weekly market day — a detail that likely factored into the timing of the attack, as large civilian movement would have complicated a rapid security response.
Residents told reporters that military troops who were normally stationed in Lassa had departed on a patrol to nearby Uba, approximately 16 kilometres away, shortly before the insurgents struck.
“The soldiers were not around when the terrorists invaded. They came in large numbers, firing sporadically and causing panic everywhere. They took away students writing NECO and their teachers,” one eyewitness said.
Solomon Kwamagar, Special Adviser on Media and Strategy to Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Fintiri and a native of Lassa, confirmed the attack and said residents were still working to establish the exact number of those taken. Kwamagar noted that Lassa sits in Borno State but is predominantly inhabited by the Margi ethnic group, whose population spans both Borno and neighbouring Adamawa State.
“They shot and killed one teacher and took away all the students who were in their classrooms,” Kwamagar said.
The Chairman of Askira/Uba Local Government Area, Mada Saidu, declined to speak when reached, saying only: “I am very busy now. We are in a situation.”
Security forces, including the Borno State Area Commander, are currently conducting search and rescue operations in the surrounding bush.
A Community That Has Been Hit Before — Recently
Monday’s attack is not the first time Lassa and its neighbouring communities in Askira/Uba have been targeted in 2026. On May 15, suspected Boko Haram/ISWAP insurgents abducted 42 pupils and students from Mussa Primary School and Junior Secondary School in the same LGA — a mass abduction that included children as young as two to four years old. Senator Ali Ndume (Borno South) confirmed at the time that the victims included 28 primary school pupils, four secondary school students, and 10 children taken from their homes.
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That attack drew comparatively little national attention — partly because it coincided with a separate kidnapping in Oyo State that dominated media cycles, and partly because of the geographical and media distance between the Northeast and the Lagos-based national press. A commentary published weeks later noted that despite the abduction of toddlers in Borno, “many people like my acquaintance are not even aware of the children abducted from a school in Borno.”
Monday’s attack on NECO candidates — coming just six weeks after the Mussa abduction, in the same LGA — deepens the question of why Askira/Uba has not triggered the kind of national response that similar attacks in the Southwest have prompted.
The Bigger Picture
Northeastern Nigeria remains one of the most volatile conflict zones on the continent. While Nigeria’s military has recorded tactical gains against Boko Haram and ISWAP — including precision airstrikes and recent surrenders of senior commanders — the persistence of attacks on civilian infrastructure like schools signals that the security cordon around communities like Lassa remains dangerously thin.
The apparent absence of soldiers from Lassa at the precise moment of the attack will draw scrutiny. Whether this was a coincidence, a tactical intelligence failure on the military’s part, or a deliberate exploitation of patrol patterns by ISWAP, the outcome is the same: a school was left exposed during a national examination, and students were taken in the middle of what should have been a protected, state-supervised event.
NECO examinations run on fixed nationwide schedules. The fact that insurgents timed their attack to coincide with active exams suggests surveillance and deliberate planning — not an opportunistic raid.
The Bottom Line
An unknown number of Nigerian students who sat down to write an examination on Monday morning are now in the bush, in the hands of ISWAP. One of their teachers is dead. Search operations are underway, but in previous Borno abductions, recovery has been slow, politically complicated, and incomplete. As of this report, no official figure for those abducted has been released. Families in Lassa are waiting. The nation should be paying attention.
