Barely three months after 327 secondary school students were abducted by bandits in Katsina and Kagara in Nigeria, another 300 schoolgirls have been reported abducted by gunmen in Zamfara State.
The suspected bandits kidnapped the girls at Government Secondary School Jangebe in Zamfara State at about 1 am on Friday.
On December 11, 2020, over 300 schoolboys of Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, Katsina State, were abducted but were rescued in less than three days of negotiations.
In Kagara in Niger State, 27 schoolboys, three teachers and some 12 people were abducted on February 17. The State government is still negotiating their release.
Boko Haram terrorists introduced the abduction and killing of students on February 14, 2014, when they abducted more than 276 schoolgirls at Government Science Secondary School in Chibok, Borno state.
Four years after, gunmen hit Government Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, and abducted 119 girls, who later rescued, except for Leigh Sharibu, who refused to convert to Islam.
The latest incident in the Talata-Mafara Local Government Area of Zamfara came barely 24 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the military to flush out bandits and declared that the government will not grant the criminals amnesty.
Zamfara State commissioner for Information, Mr. Suleiman Tunau Anka, said the gunmen stormed the school around 1 am.
Banditry is increasingly threatening the peace of the nation, especially in the northeastern and northwestern regions.
A parent, Mr Sadi Kawaye, who resides at Kawaye village in Anka Local Government Area of the state, said his daughters, Mansura and Sakina, were among those abducted.
“I’m on my way to Jangebe right now over this terrible situation,” he said.
President Buhari earlier promised Nigerians that bandits, criminals and kidnappers will be dealt with by security agents.
“Criminals are criminals and should be dealt with accordingly, without resorting to ethnic profiling. I have already tasked the new service chiefs to devise strategies that will end this ugly situation where the lives of our people continue to be threatened by hoodlums and criminals,” he said on Thursday.
The President spoke at a joint security meeting of the Northern State Governors’ Forum, Northern Traditional Rulers Council and a Federal Government delegation in Kaduna.
