Kidnap-for-Ransom: Reiterating the necessity to secure citadels of learning and their environs

While Nigeria is still grappling with the abduction of a number of students by bandit operation from the Greenfield University on Tuesday, 20 April 2021, in Kasarami village, Chikun LGA, Kaduna State, an ugly development that has heightened insecurity fear in the Country, another panicky disclosure came up again to public hearing on Thursday notifying of another Wednesday night kidnap of a number of students of the Abia State University, Uturu, by unknown gunmen.

It was also gathered that the armed men whisked the students into the forest shortly after they ambushed them while transiting on a bus along Okigwe-Uturu Road. Confirming the incident, the State’s Commissioner for Information, John Kalu, confirmed the development in a statement on Thursday, saying that two of the students escaped from the clutches of the hoodlums while others were still being held hostage by the criminals.

The statement read, “Abia State Government is currently monitoring an incident that happened in Okigwe, Imo State, yesterday which led to the suspected abduction of yet to be determined number of students of the Abia State University, Uturu, who apparently ran into a yet to be identified gang of hoodlums operating along the Okigwe-Uturu Road. Preliminary information available to us indicates that the students were moving in a mini van from Okigwe to Uturu between 7pm – 8pm when they ran into the armed gang who marched them into the nearby forest along with other yet to be identified travelers. Two of the students managed to escape from the hoodlums while others are still being held at a yet to be identified location. We are working with the government of Imo State and relevant security agencies in both states to ensure the rescue of the abducted students and others.”

The recent menace of banditry with the attendant kidnap for ransom is by every means reflecting growing wings with the tentacles far spreading into other parts of the Country. From Borno to Yobe, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Kaduna among other Northern States, the  menace has graduated to Abia. It would be recalled that Nigerian NewsDirect had in a last month editorial stressed the need for the Government to heighten security across academic institutions and the routes leading to their environs.

The turn of attention to schools as soft targets by bandits has in recent time become troubling in Nigeria. It is apparent that the susceptibility of schools in the Northern part of the Country currently ravaged by the storms of banditry and terrorism, has become a thorn in the flesh. The antecedent of abducting school children could be traced to the rooting foundation laid in 2014 when the mischievous Boko-Haram sect attacked a government girl’s school in Chibok and carted away girls in  scores. The inability of the government to secure the rescue of the girls without resort to some form of negotiation with the sect, which only led to the release of some of them was a bad precedent that is traceable to the present phenomenon of bandits turning to schools to kidnap students for ransom. Since it is apparently believed the government leans more to rescue by ransom than by security intelligence, the craft has become lucrative to mischievous elements who believe in making cheap money out of mischief.

While rolling of scathing criticisms continue to wave from various angles, it is evident that the concern of the threats against various arms of human endeavour is conspicuous. One of the institutions of human society which is recently facing the threats of disturbances by insecurity menace is education. The targets of schools by bandit and terrorist groups most recently have become so rife. The movement of terrorists turning to attacking schools to kidnap pupils has grown from what was experienced in the kidnap of the Chibok girls in Bornu in 2014, to a troubling phenomenon by spates of attacks on schools to abduct students in their numbers. The records of rescue of some of the students after their abduction by the government, have been argued not to have been effected without payment of ransom. However, the experience of holding some children back in hostage and the loss of some others in the course of the attacks, constitute some arrows of panic sending fear down the spine of many parents, particularly in the Northern parts of the Country where this kidnap saga is taking deep root. The threats that such escapades portend against the Country cannot be underestimated, considering how the depth of illiteracy in the North has been recorded to have contributed largely to the preponderance of poverty and insecurity in itself. It has been argued that most illiterate and uneducated persons have been soft spots for recruitment into banditry and terrorist groups.

However, the poor response of security architecture to proffer safe haven to schools in threat zones of banditry and terrorism in the North has been a subject of concern. It has been argued that the fact that the political class has none of their children/wards enrolled in these schools, informs why the response to the threats against these schools have been attracting poor political will to muster the right force to keep the schools safe. While the victims of the abduction used to be pupils in secondary schools, recent development have seen the phenomenon graduating to heightening level of kidnapping matured students of higher institution of learning.

Nigerian NewsDirect therefore wishes to reiterate our position that “it is essential that the Federal Government put in frontline the threat that increasing attacks on academic institutions pose on education in the Country, particularly in the North. It is widely known that the level of interest for education in the Northern part of the Country is still at a very low ebb, which does not in any way speak good fortune if further dampened by threats which may lead to a worsening loss of interest by fear of attacks on students. It is thus, important for the Federal Government to put all measures in place to heighten security formations around schools in the North to forestall further attacks which may lead to apathy drawing pupils away from schools. The rising phenomenon is largely undesirable for the depth of illiteracy and poverty records which  apparently constitute underlying factors attributable to the expanding tentacles of banditry and terrorism in the Country, particularly as pronounced in the North.” It is no gainsaying that the Country is within a fiery storm, which demands that Government authorities handle with firm grip. To avoid further subjecting innocent students, their parents and relatives to risks of insecurity and agony, it is paramount that Government pay attention to security situations across all levels of citadels of learning in the Federation.