Barely two weeks after the abduction of over 20 schoolboys in Niger State by bandits, gunmen have again kidnapped over 300 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Talata Mafara Local Government ent Area of Zamfara State.
According to BBC, the incident happened in the early hours of Friday, as a teacher confirmed the attack with the number of kidnapped students put at over 300.
News of the latest abduction comes less than two weeks after armed men broke into Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State, where they abducted over 20 students. The students are still in captivity as at the time of filing this report.
Zamfara in Northwest Nigeria is one of the states most affected by bandits’ attacks that have continued despite negotiation moves initiated by the state government to bring the bandits to the roundtable.
A parent who resides at Kawaye village Safi Kawaye told newsmen that his two daughters, Mansura and Sakina were among the abducted students.
When contacted, Police Public Relations Officer in Zamfara, State, Muhammad Shehu said he could not react. “Give me some time, I can’t say anything now,” he said.
It would be recalled that Governor Sani Bello of Niger State on Thursday alleged that the Federal Government had abandoned the state on the issues relating to the release of Kagara victims.
Despite President Muhammadu Buhari’s order to security agencies to ensure immediate release of Kagara victims, the students are still in captivity.
In an audio that went viral on social media, a man, who spoke on behalf of the abductors of Kagara victims, threatened that they might starve to death.
This is the first time in Nigeria that gunmen will stage large-scale abduction of students from different schools with less than two weeks’ interval.
The first major attack on a school by an armed gang happened in Borno State, where over 300 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, were abducted on April 14, 2014.
Four years after, gunmen hit Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, and abducted 119 students.
In December 2020, over 300 male students were abducted at Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State.
It would be recalled that 19 members of the Northern Governors’ Forum met in Kaduna on Thursday to find a lasting solution to problems of insecurity that have been ravaging the region.
Northern Governors’ Forum met in Kaduna on Thursday barely a week after their South West Counterparts met in Ibadan to nip insecurity in the bud. At the end of their meeting in Ibadan, they unanimously agreed “that the meeting supported the decision of the National Economic Council (NEC) on forest management; that the nation’s boarders need to be fully secured and protected; that open grazing must be checked and looked at and that media practitioners must assist the country to end fake news.”
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