Significant number of abducted Katsina students rescued

 

Bashir Ahmad, Personal Assistant on New Media to the President, Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has said a ‘significant’ number of the abducted students of Government Science School, Kankara, in Katsina State, have been rescued.

 

Ahmad, who made this known on Twitter last night, however, did not give a specific figure of the freed students.

 

“A significant number of the students have been rescued. Praying for the immediate safe return of the rest,” @BashirAhmaad wrote.

The President’s aide also said the Katsina State Government would issue a formal statement on the development. “I am sure the Katsina State Government will issue a statement in that regard,” he stated.

 

However, as of the time of filing this report at 09:30am on Monday, the state government was yet to issue any statement.

 

Recall that the state governor, Aminu Masari, told a Federal Government delegation on a sympathy visit on Sunday that at least 333 schoolboys are still missing.

 

“The school has a population of 839 and so far, we are yet to account for 333 students. We are still counting because more are still coming out of the forest,” the governor said.

 

“Up till this moment, no one can give a precise figure of the children abducted,” he stated, adding that students who escaped confirmed some of their peers were taken.

Bandits had stormed the school on Friday night and abducted the students after a gun duel with the police. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), had arrived in the state on Friday, hours before the abduction took place.

 

Buhari condemned the abduction of the schoolboys in a statement by the Presidency on Saturday but many Nigerians expect more including a presidential visit to the school.

 

Global rights group, Amnesty International, has also condemned the abduction of the schoolboys while calling on the Buhari regime to ensure their speedy release.

The Kankara students’ abduction is not the first in the history of the nation. Non-state actors had in the past abducted hundreds of secondary school girls from Chibok, in Borno State; and Dapchi in Yobe State. Some of them eventually regained freedom while a number of them were detained in the enclaves of their abductors and sexual abusers.