9 students kidnapped as gunmen attack Katsina community

Barely 24 hours after Katsina Governor, Aminu Bello Masari urged residents of his state to procure arms and defend themselves, bandits abducted nine students in the Sakkai area in a fresh attack.

Police spokesperson, Isah Gambo, confirmed the incident to TheCable, yesterday.

The students were said to be returning from the Islamiyya school in the area when they ran into the gunmen who were attacking the residents of the area.

The nine students, all boys, were said to have been taken away by the gunmen, who drove away on motorcycles.

“The bandits were seen going into the Sakkai village and abducted nine male students from the school. The students are aged between 12 and 19. No teacher was kidnapped,” Gambo said.

“The students were on their way home from school. They weren’t abducted in the school. The students met the hoodlums coming into the village to perpetrate their crime, and the hoodlums took the opportunity to grab the students, and they took them away on their motorbikes.”

The development comes days after Aminu Masari, governor of Katsina, told Faruk Yahaya, chief of army staff, that bandits attack at least 10 LGAs daily in the state.

Masari had also, on Tuesday, urged residents of the state to rise above meekness and defend themselves against attacks by gunmen.

“It is the people’s meek submission that emboldens the bandits to continue with their heinous activities with murderous frequency. People must divorce their minds from the mistaken notion that security is the government’s sole responsibility alone,” Masari had said.

Meanwhile, Niger State new Commissioner of Police, Monday Kuryas, has given assurance that the abducted children of Tanko Salihu Islamiyya School in Tegina would soon be rescued.

He said the government has signified readiness to support the security agents in the state to ensure the rescue of the children who have spent about 80 days in their abductors’ den.

Speaking to newsmen in Mariga Local Government Area during his ongoing familiarisation and a morale-boosting visit to police mobile and special forces camps in some flashpoints across the state, the police boss said: “Intelligence is on and the security agencies in the state are doing their best to locate where the children are and rescue them.

“The children will be released very soon. Intelligence is everywhere, we are doing our best in trying to locate where these children are and by the grace of God, I can assure you they will be rescued soon.”

The CP said his tour of mobile and police special forces camps across the state was to acquaint himself with the security challenges. He said both the state government and the security agencies would do everything to see the release of the children.

Despite the security challenges in parts of the state, he expressed satisfaction with the security architecture in the state, adding that the government and his predecessor had done their best to reduce terrorism, banditry and other criminal activities to its barest minimum.