The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has on national TV, begged bandits terrorising the country with seemingly unending abductions of students to leave schools alone.
The minister, who made the appeal on Tuesday night when he featured as a guest on a television programme, was reacting to the reported release of three more abducted students of the Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna State.
Recall that the students were abducted by bandits on July 5, 2021 around 2am on the school premises along the Kaduna-Kachia Expressway, Damishi, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna.
The first batch of 28 of the students had spent 20 days in the kidnappers’ den before their recent release. This was after the payment of a N50 million ransom.
When asked to comment on the release of the three students, the minister said, “I’m elated; this is the kind of news I want to be hearing everyday that they should please return our children to us. I am so happy for these children and their parents but I appeal, like I have been appealing — I was in Katsina to plead with the air service men who are flying that area to please.
“I encourage our military, they are doing tremendous job of following up these kidnappers and these bandits but I appeal to the bandits and whoever talks to them, please leave our schools alone.
“We already have many issues from Kagara to Jangebe to all the places, they have just been disrupting school activities for our children, this is unprecedented. The atmosphere of insecurity is a big setback for us in the school agenda.
“I am glad to have these three back and I would be glad to have all of them back,” Nwajiuba added while assuring parents that the government would do everything possible to secure the release of other abducted students.”
The abduction of students in Kaduna State has been experienced in most parts of the country as hundreds of them have been kidnapped in the past months from Kankara in Katsina; Jangebe in Zamfara State; Kagara in Niger State; Chibok in Borno State; and Dapchi in Yobe State, amongst other.
