There are conflicting figures as there are narrators of the shocking saga of scores of students and pupils of a government primary and secondary school been invaded by terrorists on the outskirts of Kaduna State.
Worse, 24 hours after, no one is communicating with Nigerians over the deja vu incident. Mum has become the word over the embarrassing fiasco of security agents combing the bushes of Kaduna, while being careful that the pre-teens and teenagers not made a shield by the terrorists.
Quite unlike the Kaduna State government, it has not interfaced with citizens through its regular channel, Mr. Samuel Aruwan, the Commissioner for Home Affairs and Internal Security.
Sources said it may not be unconnected with efforts to get verifiable information on the abducted persons and harmonise the position of security forces.
However, the question still rankles on how a huge number of bandits could move into Kuriga, cart away scores, perhaps hundreds, of students into the forests without security agencies not having any idea of the operations.
Recall that the media reported on Thursday that the terrorist kidnapped more than 200 school pupils in the northern town of Kuriga.
A week before, insurgents kidnapped 200 internally displaced women in Borno State.
The women were kidnapped in Ngala, the headquarters of Gamboru Ngala Local Government Area while they were fetching firewood in the bush.
A week earlier, bandits invaded Gonin-Gora in the same Chikun LGA, a situation that angered residents so much they barricaded the Kaduna-Abuja Expressway in protest. Nearly 20 were said to have been kidnapped and were seen been herded across the Kaduna River into a village in Niger State, near the Shiroro Dam.
Police in Kaduna state did not immediately respond to journalists’ questions and even more than a day are still quiet over the Kuriga school abductions.
A teacher Abdulahi gave his own account when Governor Uba Sani came calling, “I resumed school today (Thursday) at exactly 7:47am. I entered the acting principal’s office and signed. All of a sudden, the acting principal asked me to look at my back and when I turned, we discovered that bandits had surrounded the school premises.
“We became confused. We didn’t know where to go. Then, the bandits asked us to enter the bush, so we obeyed them because there were many and the pupils who were about 700 were following us. So, when we entered the bush, I was lucky to escape alongside many other people.
“So, I returned to the village and reported what happened to the community. So, immediately our vigilante and personnel of KADVS (Kaduna State Vigilante Service) followed the bandits, but the vigilante did not succeed. The bandits killed one of the vigilantes; we just buried him a short while ago.
“It was when we came back from that pursuit that we briefed the village head and we started making efforts to know the number of pupils and teachers taken away by the bandits.
“At GSS Kuriga, 187 students are presently missing. In the primary school, 125 pupils were initially missing, but, 25 of them escaped and retired home…over 280 pupils and teachers were taken away.’’
Local councillor for Kuriga Idris Maiallura said he had been to the school and said the gunmen initially took 100 primary schools pupils but later freed them while others escaped.
Parents and residents blamed the kidnapping on lack of security in the area.
Kaduna state Governor Uba Sani visited Kuriga and promised to get the students released, his office said, but did not say how many pupils were missing.
Amnesty International called on Nigerian authorities to safely rescue the students and hold perpetrators to account.
“We don’t know what to do, we are all waiting to see what God can do. They are my only children I have on Earth,” Fatima Usman, whose two children were among those abducted, told Reuters by telephone.
Another parent, Hassan Abdullahi, said local vigilantes had tried to repel the gunmen but had been overpowered.
“Seventeen of the students abducted are my children. I feel very sad that the government has neglected us completely in this area,” Abdullahi said.
Kidnappings for ransom by armed men have become endemic in northern Nigeria, disrupting daily lives and keeping thousands of children from attending school.
The last major reported abduction involving school children in Kaduna was in July 2021 when gunmen took more than 150 students in a raid. The students were re-united months later with their families after they paid ransoms.
Al Jazeera quotes Chris Kwaja, an associate professor at the Centre for Peace and Security Studies at Modibbo Adama University in northeastern Nigeria that the frequency of abductions tells an “unfortunate story of the high level of coordination, sophistication and lethality” that defines the criminal organised groups in the country.
There is also a level of complicity within the communities affected, Kwaja said on Friday, that allows kidnappers to know how to undertake such operations.
The criminal networks can provide incentives to people within communities who do not feel supported by the government and are facing “hunger, starvation, poverty and unemployment”, he said.
Following reports of abducted person been seen last week crossing a river into Niger State, public commentator, Polycarp Gbaja, wrote on social media: “This is tragic, if this account is true. Gonin gora, extending to the adjacent Sabon Tasha, right up to Kudansa and Kajuru, westward, has been under attack for at least a decade. It is the key town at the entrance into Kaduna on the Abuja-Kaduna Road.
“The Shiroro Camp of the Fulani Militia, now in full liaison with Boko Haram, is aso well known. It is the major terrorist base, from where practically all violent attacks on Kaduna City and environs, Abuja-Kaduna Road and Niger State, have been run with absolute impunity. The infamous Abuja-Kaduna Train Bombing of May 2022, was likely launched from this terrorist base, extending to its other bases transfer holding centers in Birnin Gwari area.
“The security agencies are all aware of this. Many of the most brazen attacks against both the military and civilians in that area of Niger state, encompassing the triangle of Abuja, Kaduna, and Minna, could be traced to this counterpart of Sambisa Forest, in the North Central area, touching FCT, Kaduna, Niger, Kwara, even extending to Nassarawa State, where some victims were being transferred, to their holding sites, after kidnap.
“It is probably why the vulnerability of citizens in all these areas, travelling or domiciled, has been so obvious.
There is more than enough available surveillance, defense and attack technology and personnel to deal with this, after over a decade of this mess, in and around the critical Capital cities of Abuja and Kaduna.
“Clearly, no rocket science, but the impunity of the attacks, has over the years eroded public trust in the genuiness of both the Federal and State Governments to deal with this shameful situation.
“No less than the former Governors of Kaduna and Niger States have accused the central government of doing far less than required, in spite of critical Intel and available military capability.
“Kaduna and Abuja cities each have the full import of over 15 national security agencies and institutions, each, including the Air Force and well equipped Army and DSS, that could have neutralised this elaborate terrorist base at Shiroro, at the heart of the nation, barely 25 minutes drive to Kaduna city?
“Why has the full strength of Nigeria’s force not been brought to ground to deal with this inexcusable, blatant violation of Nigeria’s critical space and its defenceless citizens, for over a decade?
“It is deeply disturbing that we are hearing the same rhetorics, as in Plateau State, that happened in the December 2023 massacres, where for at least 24 hours, there was hardly any military presence, while over 200 indigenes were killed by the same Fulani militia, while over 7-11 communities were razed to the ground and over 10,000 people displaced, in the Mangu and Bassa areas?
“Something is deeply wrong and has remained unanswered by the federal and state governments on critical security, on these brazen attacks by known actors for over a decade, in the same areas.
:The National Assembly, as a major stakeholder in government, is duty bound to address most urgently the issue of state police before it, with all the diligence required, including against abuses.
“So also, the question of citizens right to defend themselves and loved ones against such aggression. It is time to expedite consideration of the Weapons Acts, also before the NASS, that would enable citizens to activate their Right To Life, especially against terrorists spread all over the land, brazenly carrying military grade weapons.
“A more robust conversation needs to be maintained in the NASS whose duty it is, to regulate and even sanction the President, when necessary, on the critical issue of security. They must come up with the enactment of a clear security and defence policy, bills and laws, strangely missing in our Constitution for over 63 years.
“The CDS and all the other Service Chiefs have a lot of work to do. But most of all, the body language and actions of Mr. President need to sharply escalate, to show he means business, to deal with this unacceptable situation of insecurity, with its twin of corruption in high places, that have kept at bay, the other vital components of economic development and investments into the polity.”