2024-03-15 13:36:00
The group that kidnapped almost 300 students on March 7 in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, in the center-north of the country, has demanded a ransom of 1 billion naira (about 600,000 euros) or else they will kill the hostages , at the latest at the beginning of next month, as local sources have informed the Nigerian news portal People’s Gazette.
The attack was carried out by “hundreds” of members of a gang of “bandits”, as the Nigerian Government designates these criminal organizations based on kidnapping and extortion, on the school and institute of the Local Educational Authority in Kuriga, which resulted in in principle with the kidnapping of 127 primary school students and another 187 secondary school students plus several people in charge of the center, including its director.
Precisely the latter provided the kidnappers with the mobile phone of one of the residents of the town of Kuriga, who has served as the first intermediary for the kidnappers’ demands.
This citizen, Aminu Jibril, received the call from the captors around noon this Thursday through “a hidden number.” “They threatened to kill all the children, all 287 of them,” Jibril explained before indicating that the kidnappers demanded payment of this ransom “within 20 days.” It has not been made known whether this period counts from this call or from the day of the kidnapping. Jibril immediately transferred all this information to a group of intermediaries who in turn reported it to the state commissioner of Internal Affairs, Samuel Aruwan.
The kidnappers’ call came just a day after Nigerian President Bola Tinubu once again urged state security forces to treat the abduction of the Kaduna students with the utmost urgency to ensure that “The kidnappers do not receive a single cent” in ransom, according to what his Minister of Information Alhaji Muhammed Idris later reported, in statements reported by the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard.
Jibril has already advised that the local Kuriga community cannot raise this amount of money in any way. “We could not get even half a billion naira even if we sold all our properties, even if we sold ourselves. The Government and international organizations have to intervene,” he requested.
The Nigerian Army has been waging a campaign for years against these groups that have devastated entire communities in the country, with young students in its sights. The Government, to facilitate military action, has designated these gangs as terrorist groups.
However, some NGOs such as International Amnesty have denounced in recent weeks that kidnappings such as the one in Kuriga, or the one that occurred at the beginning of the month in the state of Borno, where according to Amnesty more than 400 internally displaced people were kidnapped, highlights the ineffectiveness of the measures adopted by the Nigerian governments. during the last few years, either of former President Muhamadu Buhari or that of his successor, Tinubu.
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