By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
Two of the 279 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State, released by their armed abductors, Farida Lawali and Umma Abubakar, have said that they were ill-treated by the Fulani bandits during the period of captivity.
Farida Lawali, 15, said that after forcing them out of their dormitory the gunmen matched them into the forest even with the sick ones, who were crying and asking for mercy.
She narrated:
“They carried the sick ones that could not move. We were walking in the stones and thorns.
“They started hitting us with guns so that we could move fast.”
Farida, who was covered in a light blue veil, further said, “While they were beating us with guns, some of us were crying and moving at the same time.
“They said that they would shoot anybody who did not continue to walk.”
Confirming the ordeal, another of the girls, Umma Abubakar, said that many had injuries that had made walking difficult.
Relief at their return was tempered by concern over the circumstances of their release, according to Reuters. A series of similar school abductions in recent months had led many Nigerians to worry that regional authorities were making the situation worse by letting kidnappers go unpunished or paying them off.
For instance, Zailani Bappa, a media adviser to the Zamfara State Governor, denied that a ransom had been paid.
He disclosed that the captors had been offered amnesty by the government, as well as assistance to resettle at a site with newly built schools, a hospital and other facilities.
His words: “The process means amnesty for those who repent and will be assisted to resettle. Hence, no monetary inducement or ransom was involved in the rescue. It was a willing surrender of the girls.
“Those who surrender their arms will be assisted to start a new life. Since they are herders, they will be supported with a few cows each.”
Recall that the state governor, Dr Bello Matawalle, at the weekend said that Nigerians would marvel if those behind the abduction were disclosed.
Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has called for the captors to be brought to justice and said that if any ransoms were being paid, it would only make future attacks more likely.
The pupils from Jangebe, a town were seized just after midnight on Friday. All had now been freed, Zamfara Governor Bello Matawalle said.
Boarding schools in northern Nigeria have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom by armed criminal gangs.
The trend was started by the jihadist group, Boko Haram, which kidnapped 270 schoolgirls in 2014, around 100 of whom have never been found. But recent months have seen a sudden escalation of similar attacks, including the abduction of 344 boys in December.
Friday’s raid on the Government Girls Science Secondary School was the second school abduction in little over a week in the northwest.
Lawal Abdullahi, whose seven daughters were among those kidnapped and freed, told Reuters that the incident would not deter him from schooling his children.
“It’s a ploy to deny our girls … from getting the Western education in which we are far behind.
“We should not succumb to blackmail. My advice to government is that they should take immediate precautions to stop further abductions,” he said.
As recently as Saturday, gunmen released 27 teenage boys who had been kidnapped from their school on February 17 in Niger State.
