*kills 1 of vigilantes trailing them
*Gov Sani assured of safe return
By Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna
Latest update have emerged on how Kuriga community, Chikun LGA Kaduna stated was raided by heavily armed bandits and kidnapped 287 primary and secondary school pupils, students and teachers.
According to the latest, the bandits kidnapped 287 pupils from Kuriga Primary and Secondary School from the LGA around 8:30 am during the attack on Thursday.
One of the Government Secondary School teachers, Sani Abdullahi, also narrated the incident when Governor Uba Sani led senior government officials and senior security officers to the Kuriga village Head’s palace.
Abdullahi said: “I resumed to the school today 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 and pupils because they were many, 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 followed the bandits but the vigilante did not succeed. In fact, the bandits killed one of the vigilante, we just buried him hours ago.
“It was when we came back from that pursuit that we briefed the Village Head and we started making efforts to know the actual number of pupils and teachers taken away by the bandits.
“At GSS Kuriga, 187 students are missing. In the primary school, 125 pupils were initially missing, but 25 of them escaped and returned home,” he narrated.
Governor Uba Sani assured the community he would do everything possible to ensure all the children return home unhurt.
The Governor said: “In my capacity as your elected Governor, I am assuring you that, by the grace of God, all the children will return unhurt.
“Before coming here, I spoke with the National Security Adviser (NSA) Malam Nuhu Ribadu and we are making efforts, the security forces have swung into action and by God’s grace, we will rescue the children.
“We will do whatever we need to do to ensure safe return of these children, even if it means coming to Kuriga to stay with you. The essence of government is protection of citizens lives and property. We recognise the fact that we are holding this position in trust for the people and by God’s grace, we will protect the citizens’ rights.
“I am one of the prominent voices on the issue of security. When I was in the Senate, I moved the motion for the creation of State Police.
We have realised that there are not enough boots on ground that is why we feel that, if we’ve State Police, every community like Kuriga will have people in the Police and they would be armed with AK47 rifles. That is the only way we would be able to protect the lives and property of the citizens.
“The vigilantes are not as armed as the bandits, because they do have AK47, that is why the bandits are constantly causing us destructions. They come in to humiliate, kill and abduct our citizens.
“Since I received the sad news of this incident, I have not had rest of mind because every child in Kaduna State is my child. So, I don’t want to you people to be disturbed. Let’s us pray to God to help and on our part as a government, we will not rest until these children return home.”
While addressing the community members, Governor Sani also promised to establish a Police Station and build a permanent camp for the military in the community.
On alleged killing of one and injured students and taking to hospital in Birinin Gwari LGA, the local source who spoke to our correspondent could not confirm the information attributing it to poor network in reaching people in incident area.
On whether trucks was used to convey the large number of victims, he said the abducted pupils, students and teachers were pursued and drive into the bushes like cattle using guns fears and intimidation
The source also disclosed that the secondary school students were earlier relocated from their main campus to the primary school premises near vilkage for fear if bandits.
