Last Friday, suspected armed bandits, in an overnight raid, stormed a school dormitory in Zamfara At the end of a headcount, more than 300 students of Government Girls’ Secondary School, Jangebe, were still unaccounted for.
A teacher who witnessed the Rambo-style human hijacking said the ungodly attack happened around 1:00 am. Details on the number of students present in the school at the time of the abduction are still not given.
The hijack once again underscored the regime of heavily-armed gangsterism now prevalent in the restive North-West and central Nigeria.
The nation is getting sick of the serial news of dare-devil terrorist gangs on the loose in the North, laced with criminal kidnappings for ‘ransom, raping and pillaging’.
We are yet to wake up from the hangover of the penultimate week, when 42 people were hijacked with crude force by ‘bandits’ at a school in Kagara, Niger State.
More than 300 boys were also kidnapped from a school last December in Kankara, Katsina State, the home-front of President Muhammadu Buhari, who was visiting at the time.
The kidnapped were later released after dramatic shows that did not explain what the real issues underscoring the criminal hijacks were, other that some leaders started posturing on banditry as if it were a noble venture.
A parent’s narrative to international news agency, AFP, tells us that we could really be in for a bigger challenges in insecurity, unless better strategies are mapped out.
The parent said he had earlier received a call about the latest incident in Zamfara while the invasion was taking place.
“I’m on my way to Jangebe. I received a call that the school was invaded by bandits who took away schoolgirls. I have two daughters in the school.”
The usual official roll-outs that gunboats, drones and troops were combing wherever may, seriously speaking, not be tenable again in these kind of circumstances.
The theatre of kidnapping in the Northwest and central Nigeria is said to be a known forest, Rugu, which straddles Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.
Like the known base of terrorism in the North-East, Sambissa, it would seem that the Rugu forest too has suddenly become a difficult place to effectively police by the security forces.
According to reports, the forest has increasingly become a hub for large criminal gangs in camps who raid villages, killing and abducting residents after looting, torching homes and executing mass kidnappings in the area.
It is now widely becoming glaring that, apart from reasons of financial inducement, no known ideological issue underscores the militancy we are now being held hostage to.
ThisNigeria continues to sound a warning to stakeholders and the authorities that time is running out on the acts of criminal hijackings in our schools.
We re-affirm our position on the need for Mr. President to save our endangered school children from the nightmare of hijackings and needless killings.
We appreciate the president’s recent verbal tackle on the phenomenon of banditry in the country, especially the warning against ethnic profiling on criminality. Bandits and criminals and the like are all over the country, and their nefarious activities are becoming unbearable for all.
It would be a great tragedy, if in the course of fighting banditry in a region, we encourage others, by omission or commission elsewhere, to join the fray.
It is our hope that the Federal Government would take action, beyond words, on the vow to ‘deal’ with insurgents, bandits, kidnappers and other criminals threatening national security.
We equally note the president’s timely speech delivered on his behalf by his chief of staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, at a meeting with northern governors and traditional rulers in Kaduna, challenging the new service chiefs ‘’to devise new methods of protecting lives and property’’.
It is hoped that those in the official circles who reportedly use state machinery to encourage criminal elements for issues such as elections, only to ‘dump’ them later, will have a change of heart and tendency of unfulfilled promises.
It would appear that those at the helm of security in the country have a different template on what is actually happening on the ground that they need to share with the nation.
Recall that, recently, and before the new wave of abductions, newly-appointed chief of army staff, Maj-Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, gave troops in the Borno theatre ‘’to recapture communities in Borno State within 48 hours’’.
There is the need to realise that the era of calculated ultimatums that do not seem to have a bearing with the realities on the ground should be gone.
This is hoping that Zamfara State governor, Bello Mutawalle, would keep to his assurance that a speedy rescue of the Jangebe Schoolgirls was on the way.
Like he stated in his state-wide broadcast, we also wish to extend our deep sympathy to the families of the abductees and the entire people of Jangebe over the sad incident.
