Bandits kidnap 300 students in fresh Zamfara attack

Barely nine days after Kagara students were kidnapped in Niger state, gunmen Friday stormed GSS Jangebe, Zamfara state and abducted some schoolgirls, Vanguard reports.

The number of the kidnapped students has yet to be ascertained. The Northern States Governors Forum is currently meeting in Kaduna, over insecurity and other issues affecting the region.

“We have to take major decisions on the future of the region as we work towards overcoming insecurity, poverty, illiteracy and unity,” said Chairman of the forum, Simon Lalong, Wednesday.

At the start of the meeting on Thursday, Governor Lalong regretted that insecurity has taken the region backwards.

“We have a long way to go in terms of education, healthcare delivery, infrastructural development, food security, industrialisation and human capital development, among others. All these are exacerbated by the insecurity that has bedeviled us and the entire nation for many years now,” said the Governor.

President Muhammadu Buhari, represented at the meeting by his Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari said he had asked his new service chiefs to work out new strategies to end insecurity in the country.

“Criminals are criminals and should be dealt with accordingly as such without resorting to ethnic profiling,” said the President.

He urged the NGF to also work out stronger collaboration with security agencies in fighting crime and insecurity.

The latest abductions might however pose a fresh challenge to the Governors.

The Niger State Government had yet to complete negotiations for the release of its abducted students when the latest occured.

Many analysts are of the view that the nation’s security should have been given the manpower, equipment and freedom to take out the criminals rather than dialogue with them, thus emboldening them.