Sani Abdullahi, a teacher at Government Secondary School Kuriga, Kaduna State, has narrated how about 280 students and teachers were kidnapped by bandits.
Gatekeepers News reports that the bandits invaded the Government Secondary School and LEA primary school in the Kuriga area of the Chikun Local Government Area (LGA) on Thursday. The secondary school was relocated to the primary school on account of the insecurity in the council.
The bandits reportedly shot at their victims before taking away at least 280 of the pupils and teachers from both schools.
Narrating his ordeal, Abdullahi said, “I resumed school today (Thursday) at exactly 7:47am. I entered the acting principal’s office and signed. All of a sudden, the acting principal asked me to look at my back and when I turned, we discovered that bandits had surrounded the school premises.
“We became confused. We didn’t know where to go. Then, the bandits asked us to enter the bush, so we obeyed them because there were many and the pupils who were about 700 were following us. So, when we entered the bush, I was lucky to escape alongside many other people.
“So, I returned to the village and reported what happened to the community. So, immediately our vigilante and personnel of KADVS (Kaduna State Vigilante Service) followed the bandits, but the vigilante did not succeed the bandits killed one of the vigilantes; we just buried him a short while ago.’’
The teacher, who spoke during the State Governor’s visit to the scene of the incident, explained further that the vigilantes were making efforts to identify those kidnapped by the bandits.
“It was when we came back from that pursuit that we briefed the village head and we started making efforts to know the number of pupils and teachers taken away by the bandits.
“At GSS Kuriga, 187 students are presently missing. In the primary school, 125 pupils were initially missing, but, 25 of them escaped and retired home,” he recounted.
According to him, “over 280 pupils and teachers were taken away.’’
It was also gathered that the head teacher of the school as well as some other staff members were among those abducted by the hoodlums.
It was learnt that the incident happened around 8 A.M shortly after morning assembly.
“Shortly after the assembly, the pupils in their hundreds ran out of their classes after sighting the hoodlums in large numbers on the school premises. They ran in different directions,” a resident, Adamu Shehu, told one of our correspondents on the telephone.
A pupil simply identified as Ahmed who sustained gunshot wounds and was rushed to the Birnin-Gwari General Hospital was reported dead. He was said to have died while receiving treatment at the hospital.
The Jama’atu Nasril Islam, Amnesty International, the Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria, the Nigeria Union of Teachers, and the House of Representatives condemned the attack and asked the government to rescue the victims immediately.
