Since November 2025, primary and secondary schools in large parts of Kwara South have remained closed due to insecurity, leaving pupils and students stranded at home, while their peers in other parts of the state and country continue with academic activities.
Thousands of children across several communities in Kwara State have been forced out of classrooms for months, not because of anything they did wrong, but simply because they live in areas the government has failed to secure.
Since November 2025, primary and secondary schools in large parts of Kwara South have remained closed due to insecurity, leaving pupils and students stranded at home, while their peers in other parts of the state and country continue with academic activities.
Parents, teachers and community leaders say the situation has created a dangerous inequality in access to education, where a child’s future is now determined by geography rather than ability or effort.
“These children are losing out through no fault of theirs,” a parent in Oro told SaharaReporters. “They did not choose where to be born. But because they are from Kwara South, their schools are shut and their lives are on pause.”
Another resident said, “My child asks me every day when he will go back to school. I don’t have an answer. How do you explain to a child that government has abandoned his future?”
SaharaReporters gathered that the shutdown cuts across multiple levels of education, including primary schools, secondary schools and at least two tertiary institutions in the zone.
“School of Nursing, Oke-Ode is closed. College of Education, Oro is closed. All primary schools are closed. All secondary schools are closed,” a community source said. “Education in the entire Kwara South has been completely shut down.”
Residents say the prolonged closure is now pushing children into idleness, frustration and vulnerability.
“When young people are kept out of school for this long, they become easy targets for crime, drugs and other social vices,” a teacher said. “We are breeding tomorrow’s problems.”
Many residents blame what they describe as government negligence and lack of political will to confront insecurity head-on.
“Any government that truly cares about its children would find a way to protect schools,” a parent said. “Instead, they just lock the gates and walk away.”
Several parents told SaharaReporters that while authorities insist schools cannot reopen because of insecurity, other activities continue normally in the same areas.
“You see markets open. You see businesses operating. But schools alone are shut,” a resident said. “So what is more important, the life of the child or revenue?”
Community leaders argue that shutting schools indefinitely is a lazy and dangerous response to insecurity.
“Closing schools does not solve insecurity,” a local leader said. “It only creates ignorance, poverty and anger.”
The Chief Imam of Oro, Sheikh Dr. Taofiq Sanusi, previously warned that the future of children in the area was being endangered by current policies.
“The future of our children in Kwara South is at risk because of what is happening currently,” Imam Sanusi said.
“In the whole of Kwara State today, there are reports of bandits, some Boko Haram members too, but why is it that it is only children from Kwara South that are being denied education?”
Parents also fear that the longer the shutdown lasts, the harder it will be for many children to return to school.
“Some of these children may never go back,” a mother said. “Once a child stays at home for too long, you lose them to the streets.”
SaharaReporters contacted the Kwara State Commissioner for Education, Lawal Olohungbebe, via WhatsApp to ask when schools in the affected areas would be reopened and what concrete steps the government is taking to secure learning environments, but he neither responded to multiple messages nor returned repeated calls.