By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Authorities in Borno State have assured residents that calm has been fully restored at the Government Girls College (GGC) Maiduguri following a brief panic incident on Monday evening, urging the public to ignore circulating false reports.
There was pandemonium in the school around 8:20pm when girls of the school ran out saying the saw masked men jumping into the school compound.
The clarification was first issued by the Spokesperson and Media Adviser to the Governor, Dauda Iliya, who announced on his Facebook page that “a panic incident occurred this evening at the Government Girls College in Maiduguri.”
According to him, security operatives acted swiftly to stabilise the situation.
“In response, security agencies were immediately deployed and have successfully restored order,” he said.
Iliya added that a delegation of senior government officials was dispatched to the school to assess the situation first-hand.
“To oversee the situation, a government delegation comprising the Commissioner of Education, the Chief Adviser on Sustainable Development, and the Special Adviser on Media are currently present at the school,” he wrote, urging the public to “disregard any false information.”
The Borno State Commissioner for Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Engr. Lawan Abba Wakilbe, also issued additional details to calm public anxiety.
He addressed what he described as exaggerated or misleading accounts of the disturbance circulating on social media.
According to Wakilbe, the situation was not indicative of a security breach but rather an isolated incident that triggered panic among students.
He emphasised that the school was safe and functioning normally after the intervention.
The Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Nahum Kenneth Daso, echoed the government’s assurance, stating that police deployments around the college had been reinforced.
Daso said security within and around the school had been fortified “to prevent any form of breach,” noting that officers had established increased visibility and monitoring around the premises to reassure students, staff and parents.
The combined statements from the Governor’s media office, the education ministry and the police sought to dispel rising concerns in Maiduguri following the panic at a girls’ school, a sensitive issue given the history of school-related insecurity in parts of the North-East.
Officials reiterated that there was no ongoing threat at GGC Maiduguri and encouraged the public to rely on verified information from government and security agencies.
