By Martin Cole-
Kidnappers randomly shot and abducted students from an Islamic school in the north-central Nigerian state on Sunday.
A group of armed bandits raided the school without any advance notice, killing one student in the process.
The school targeted in the attack comprises of kindergarten, elementary and middle school age children.
Niger state police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun said the attackers arrived on motorbikes in Tegina town and begn shooting indiscriminately, killing one resident and injuring another, before kidnapping the children from the Salihu Tanko Islamic school.
One of the school’s officials anonymously told reporters the attackers initially took over 100 children “but later sent back those they considered too small for them, those between four and 12 years old”.
The dreadful state of security in Northern Nigeria has become a terrible nightmare, and is slowly spreading to many states in the country.
“Armed bandits on board motorcycles in their numbers invaded Tegina town, Rafi LGA, shooting indiscriminately and abducted a yet to be ascertained number of children at Salihu Tanko Islamic school,” state police said.
“The bandits shot one person dead in the process,” the police statement added. According to state police officials, tactical teams were “immediately mobilized” as part of effort to rescue the victims. “The Command calls for calm as the Police and other security agencies shall do everything humanly possible to ensure that the children are rescued unhurt,” state police said.
“The government is working to ascertain the number of children kidnapped. A house-to-house count is ongoing,” she added.
The latest kidnapping in Tegina comes three months after 42 people, including students, were seized by gunmen in Kagara, which is located around 18 km from Tegina.
Terror
Kidnapping has become a major terror in Nigeria, with sources telling The Eye Of Media.Com that not all kidnappings make the news. One source said; ”there are many parts of Nigeria were people are kidnapped and never heard about.
”Kidnappings in schools always make news, but imagine the many times girls are kidnapped from their local compounds and from remote parts of various cities and villages.
There are cannibals kidnapping people, even adults, and they never make the news. They are just seen as missing, and there are too many of them to make the news”.
Last month , gunmen known locally as “bandits” stormed Greenfield University in northwestern Nigeria and kidnapped around 20 students, killing a member of the school’s staff in the process
Freed
The news comes days after students from Greenfield University, Kaduna, were freed. Five of the students were killed by their abductors while in captivity. The sheer wickedness of these kidnappers is beyond belief, no respect for human life exists in these wicked souls.
”People in many parts of Nigeria are like are experiencing hell on earth”, Obina Ndisi from Anambra State said. This country needs rescue”.
The situation has got so bad it has led governors to frequently pay ransoms to secure the safety of victims in some cases- making kidnapping a business for crooks. Such ransoms are always done on a low key, never officially on record.
Bandits
.Dangerous groups known as bandits, operate from forest enclaves in North Western Nigeria, where they organize attacks and kidnappings in rural areas and some major road network. The country is believed to operate in a two class system, that is the very rich and the very poor, though there is in reality some middle ground for those in stable professions who get by without lacking.
The thirst for blood is raging in parts were poverty is rife, and education is low, while education is really high in cities where some families can afford private education, and others sacrifice their life savings to give their children a good education.
In many cities, graduates females without joins give themselves to prostitution to earn a living- a lifestyle which is the lot of school drop outs and drug addicts in the western world.
Between June 2011 and the end of March 2020, an estimated $18.34 million was paid in ransoms, according to Lagos-based SBM Intelligence in a report last year titled “The economics of the kidnap industry in Nigeria.”