Govt lied: 520 Kankara schoolboys captured not 333

The Katsina state governor, Aminu Masari appeared to have undercounted the students of Kankara Government Science Secondary school, seized by Boko Haram last Friday.

Masari had said 333 students were captured or missing.

But one of the boys captured said they were 520, according to a video timed to coincide with President Buhari’s birthday.

The unidentified boy said some of them have died, in the firefight between the military and the Boko Haram terrorists.

The school has a population of over 800 students and an audit of the students was said to have been conducted.

It appeared it was not thoroughly done.

Leader of Boko Haram, the elusive Abubakar Shekau, said he was happy with the operation.

He said many people thought he was lying when he claimed responsibility for the schoolboys’ abduction.

Shekau said he would not add anything since sceptics could now see the boys by themselves.

“Even if I didn’t say anything, here are my people speaking and here are your boys speaking too,” he said in a report by Humangle.

The capture of the boys on 11 December was a record by Boko Haram standards in holding human hostage.

In the group’s first daring kidnap of Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 April, 276 students were abducted.

In Dapchi in 2017, 110 schoolgirls were abducted.