Nigeria, Oct. 9 -- Nearly six months after insurgents seized dozens of students from their schools in Borno State, they remain in captivity, raising concerns that they have become Nigeria's forgotten schoolchildren.

With more than 2,000 students abducted in roughly 30 mass kidnapping incidents, school abductions have grimly evolved into a normalised feature of Nigeria's security landscape, arguably gaining less national attention since the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in 2014.

Starting with just one incident under former President Goodluck Jonathan, school abductions worsened under late President Muhammadu Buhari, and the wave continued, spreading southward under the watch of incumbent President Bola Tinubu.

At the heart o...