Buhari urges security agencies to ensure quick release of kidnapped students

President Buhari has urged the military, police, and intelligence agencies to ensure the safe and early release of all kidnapped victims.

In a statement through his spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, the president expressed concerns over attacks targeted at students in the northern states, especially in recent times in Kaduna and Niger States.

While noting ongoing deployment of additional security personnel to all troubled areas, the president urged security outfits to “act swiftly” to rescue all school boys and girls in the affected states and ensure their safe return, NANS reports.

The president said the spate of kidnapping in the northern states will undermine the government's efforts enrolment of school-going children into schools. The northern states have the lowest education enrolment rate in the country.

He called on state governments to ensure compliance with UN-supported Safe Schools Programme, which the administration had adopted.

The president described the kidnapping as cowardly and despicable, as well as an assault on affected families and the nation.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the most recent kidnapping of school children was reported in Kaduna state where some students of Bethel Baptist School Kaduna were abducted by gunmen on Sunday.

NAN, however, reports that few hours after the abduction of the Baptist students, security personnel foiled an attack by gunmen on another school, Faith Academy, located at Mararaban Rido, Chikun Local Government Area of the state.

Reports revealed that the gunmen forcefully gained entrance into the school by breaking part of the perimeter fence of the college before military personnel foiled the attack.