Nigerian authorities have shut schools in five districts in central Kwara state, fearing they could be targets of armed gangs after a deadly attack on a church in the state earlier in the week.<\/p>\n
Nigeria has witnessed a spate of attacks by gunmen, including the kidnapping on Monday of\u00a025 schoolgirls from a boarding school in northwestern Kebbi state, putting a spotlight on insecurity and forcing President Bola Tinubu to postpone foreign trips.<\/p>\n
“The (Kwara state) government is determined to curtail the activities of kidnappers who may want to use schoolchildren as human shields,” Lawal Olohungbebe, the Kwara state education commissioner, said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n
He said the school closures would remain in place until security agencies give clearance for normal activities to resume.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday evening,\u00a0gunmen attacked\u00a0a church in Kwara state, which borders Benin in the west of Nigeria, killing at least two people and kidnapping the pastor and some worshippers.<\/p>\n
Nigeria is under scrutiny from U.S. President Donald Trump who in early November threatened\u00a0military action over his claim of the treatment of Christians in the country.<\/p>\n
Nigeria says claims that Christians face persecution misrepresent a complex security situation and do not take into account efforts to safeguard religious freedom.<\/p>\n
Tinubu has dispatched a delegation led by the country’s national security advisor to meet U.S. lawmakers and government officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerian authorities have shut schools in five districts in central Kwara state, fearing they could be targets of armed gangs after a deadly attack on a church in the state earlier in the week. Nigeria has witnessed a spate of attacks by gunmen, including the kidnapping on Monday of\u00a025 schoolgirls from a boarding school in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4089,175],"class_list":["post-18661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-west-africa","tag-kwara-state","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}