Devastated parents beg FG: Pay ransom, free our children from bandits

A grieving parent, Aminu Dayyabu, whose son, Aminu Faruq is among the missing children from Friday’s attack on Government Science Senior Secondary School, GSSS, in Kankara, Katsina  State,  yesterday, begged the Federal Government to pay ransom and set free their children from their abductors. He spoke the mind of other parents of the missing students.

This came as the national leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, said it was disturbed by the re-emerging incidence of school invasion and abduction of teachers and students across the country’s educational institutions, threatening to down tools if decisive actions are not taken to address the trend.

The union was reacting to the invasion of Government Science Senior Secondary School, GSSS, in Kankara, Katsina State by gunmen, who abducted no fewer than 300 students of the school. Meanwhile, a Special Adviser to the Katsina State Governor has said that more students from the Kankara school, missing since Friday when armed men invaded the school have returned from the bushes. The Special Adviser, Alhaji Abdulaziz   Maituraka, however, said they had no knowledge of the purported claim by Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau that his group abducted the students.

Speaking in an interview with BBC Hausa Service, Maituraka noted that some of the students were coming back on their own. Meanwhile, Boko Haram, yesterday, claimed responsibility for the abduction of hundreds of school students in Kankara, Katsina State. In a short a voice message, the group leader, said: “I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are behind the kidnapping in Katsina.” The group was also behind the 2014 abduction of hundreds of schoolgirls in Chibok.

Meanwhile, Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State, has disclosed that 17 students have been found and reunited with their parents. He disclosed this in an interview with a German radio, Deutsche Welle (DW) which was aired in Hausa on Monday evening. Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has chided the All Progressives Congress, APC, for what it called the ruling party’s insensitivity to the plight of parents of the about 600 students abducted from GSSS, Kankara on Friday. Vanguard