Niger: Abducted pupils’ parents accuse govt of negligence

Niger map

Parents of the abducted students and pupils of St. Mary Catholic Schools in Niger State on Saturday staged a protest, alleging government neglect.

They accused the government of not doing enough to rescue their children and teachers, who have spent eight days in captivity.

Over 200 parents converged on the school premises, where they registered their names and those of their wards, even as they expressed grievances over what they described as the government’s inaction.

Bandits had on November 21 stormed St. Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, in Agwara Local Government Area of the state, abducting over 300 pupils and 12 teachers, just four days after 26 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Niger State.

About 50 of the pupils later escaped after two days, but the rest are still with their captors.

Both the state and the Federal Government had vowed to rescue the pupils with the deployment of special security forces in the state.

However, some of the pupils’ parents, who carried placards with various inscriptions including ‘Bring Back Our Girls’, ‘Our Girls and Teachers Are Still in Captivity’, ‘We Need Security in Agwarra’, and ‘Is Education a Crime?’ said the state was yet to visit or send a representative to commiserate with the affected families.

The Director of Communication of the school and a diocesan priest, Rev. Fr. Stephen Okafor, who explained the parents’ registration process, said the exercise became very important as the government had requested it.

“With this registration and the number of parents who have turned up, we do hope those negative speculations will end. Some of these parents had to travel between three and four hours to get here,” Okafor said.

Also, another priest, Fr. Linus Arege, told newsmen that the registration, which started on Friday, had 215 parents and guardians already registered, stressing that it was duly supervised and signed by a representative of the Agwarra LGA and the diocese.