FROM Chibok in Borno to Dapchi in Yobe, to Kankara in Katsina, Kagara in Niger and Jangebe in Zamfara, thousands of school pupils have been stolen. This act is carried out by known non-state actors who mostly negotiated and subsequently fetched out millions from governments.
In Nigeria today, people are suffering at the hands of bandits who ravage our local communities, kill, destroy properties and abduct people, then demand for ransom from the mostly pauperised citizens. In the process, many lives have been lost just because their families could not afford to pay ransom. The most terrible and shocking moments is how these bandits invade schools and kidnap students. Not long ago, we experienced the Kankara school abduction and we failed to learn a lesson. Then Kagara happened and now Jangebe.
Mr. Peter Hawkins, the Nigerian Representative of the United Nations Children’s Funds (UNICEF), said the abduction of school kids is too often and avoidable. He charged the government of Nigeria to do everything possible to make school a safe place for children whose right to education is sacrosanct. And as a student, I share this position.
Paying bandits and gunmen to stop killing people is not amnesty. It is empowering murderers to abduct more people as they now see this heinous act as a business.
Usman Abdullahi Koli,
Bauchi.
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