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The governor of Kaduna state in north-west Nigeria says the security forces are searching for more than 280 pupils who were abducted from a school on Thursday. A teacher who managed to escape said gunmen, who had arrived on motor bikes, went on to attack local people who tried to rescue the children. One person was killed. It is the second mass kidnapping in northern Nigeria in less than a week. Last weekend more than 200 people, mainly women and children, were taken captive in Borno state. Bulama Bukarti is a senior analyst on conflict and development in sub-Saharan Africa at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He told Newsday: “The government keeps saying it is doing its best, but these kinds of incidents are a sad reminder that the government best is not good enough.” Paying ransom is illegal in Nigeria. However, Mr Bukarti says desperate parents have sold their homes and farms to pay ransom monies. “In one incident a school was sold to pay ransom.” (Picture: Shows a child’s abandoned slippers at a school compound in Yobe, north-eastern Nigeria where dozens of school girls went missing after an attack by Boko Haram on February 23, 2018. Credit: Afolabi Sotunde via Reuters.)