Southern,middle belt leaders call for restructuring

The attack left 14 children dead as the assailants reportedly "shot at anything that moved." It's the latest attack in near Niger's border with Mali.

Abubakar Adam has not seen seven of his 10 children in the two months since armed men snatched them from their boarding school in Nigeria's northern Niger state. He sold his car, a parcel of land, cleaned out his savings and along with other parents sought help from friends and relatives to raise 30 million naira ($72,993) to get their children back. But the bandits just took the money - and one of the men delivering it - leaving Adam with nothing. The rash of kidnappings across the largely poor northwest has left hundreds of parents facing the same desperate quandary: beg, borrow and sell assets, or risk never seeing their children again.

Attackers shot dead at least 36 people and destroyed buildings in a night raid on a village near the central Nigerian city of Jos, officials said on Wednesday (August 25), in an area hit by repeated ethnic clashes. The gunmen went house to house killing residents in Yelwa Zangam late on Tuesday (August 24), a military spokesman said. Troops struggled to get to the area as a bridge had been destroyed, he added.

The attack on a remote village in the northwest of the country comes days after bandits released 90 pupils they had held captive. Police are searching for the perpetrators of the latest crime.

Nigerian army has announced that around 6000 extremists have defected in recent weeks, AP is reporting an increasing number of allegations of atrocities against Tigrayan forces, and we meet the Chadian artist turning bullets into brushstrokes.

Seventy-five children who were kidnapped from their school in Nigeria's northwestern state of Zamfara were freed after their abductors came under pressure from a military crackdown, a state official said on Sunday (September 12). Gunmen took the students from the village of Kaya on Sept. 1, the latest in a spate of mass kidnappings from schools across the region. More than 1,100 children have been abducted since December last year. Authorities say heavily armed gangs of bandits, seeking ransom payments, are behind the abductions.

Officials in Nigeria have said the students were freed with the help of several of their captors who had been pressured by a military crackdown to work with authorities.

Nigerian security forces have arrested three men accused of taking part in a mass abduction on Bethel Baptist High School in July. Gunmen kidnapped 121 students who were asleep in their dorm rooms. The attack took place just outside the city of Kaduna in the north-west of the country. One hundred teens have since managed to escape or were freed, but twenty-one are still unaccounted for.

The fundamentalist group, which now rules Afghanistan, put the bodies on display to deter others. The move comes after a Taliban founder said executions and amputations will return.

Gunmen have killed dozens of people in two separate attacks in Nigeria. Villagers in Kaduna and security forces in Sokoto state have fallen victim to suspected islamists and criminal gangs. Also on the show: In an industry dominated by men, we bring you a report on the women workers changing the landscape of the Central African Republic. Finally, we take a look at one of Libya's cultural jewels: Leptis Magna. An archeological site shunned by tourists due to the country's insecurity.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Tuesday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Tuesday. ⁣⁣⁣⁣

Heavily armed gangs have been stepping up raids on schools and villages in northwestern Nigeria, often taking hostages for ransom.