By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The abduction of secondary schoolgirls in Jangebe, Zamfara State on Friday has not gone down well with President Muhammadu Buhari, who has sent out a strong warning to the terrorists, who carried out this act as well as their sponsors.
Over 300 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, were kidnapped in the wee hours of today. It occurred barely two weeks after some gunmen went away with some students and teachers of a government secondary school in Niger State.
Reacting to Friday’s incident, Mr Buhari described it as “inhumane and totally unacceptable,” emphasising that his “administration will not succumb to blackmail by bandits who target innocent school students in the expectations of huge ransom payments.”
In the statement issued by the presidency, Mr Buhari maintained that “no criminal group can be too strong to be defeated by the government,” adding that “the only thing standing between our security forces and the bandits are the rules of engagement.”
“Let them not entertain any illusions that they are more powerful than the government. They shouldn’t mistake our restraint for the humanitarian goals of protecting innocent lives as a weakness or a sign of fear or irresolution,” he further said.
The President urged state governments “to review their policy of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles, warning that the policy might boomerang disastrously.”
He also advised states and local governments to be more proactive by improving security around schools and their surroundings.
He noted that the federal government has the “capacity to deploy massive force against the bandits in the villages where they operate, but our limitation is the fear of heavy casualties of innocent villagers and hostages who might be used as human shields by the bandits,” stressing that “our primary objective is to get the hostages safe, alive and unharmed.”
President Buhari noted that “a hostage crisis is a complex situation that requires maximum patience in order to protect the victims from physical harm or even brutal death at the hands of their captors.”
