March 10, (THEWILL)- Ten years after Boko Haram struck in Chibok, a predominantly Christian community in Borno State in April 2014, making away with about 276 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, gun-totting bandits struck again in Kaduna last week, taking away over 280 school children.
As if marking a decade of the inglorious Chibok abduction, which brought the rural Borno village into national and international attention, last week’s Kaduna kidnapping of over 280 school children and women, had all the semblance of the infamous 2014 kidnapping of the Chibok girls.
Last Thursday, the pupils and teachers of Government Secondary School and Local Education Authority primary school at Kuriga, Kaduna State were kidnapped by the terrorists, who invaded the Kuriga area of the Chikun Local Government Area of the State, started shooting at their victims before taking away no fewer than 280 of the pupils and teachers from both schools.
Only a day before the Kaduna abduction, the bandits had struck in Ngala, headquarters of Gambarou Ngala in Borno State, taking away some 200 women internally displaced women fetching firewood for survival in the bush. Penultimate Thursday, the hoodlums struck at the same Gonin-Gora in Chikun LGA, Kaduna State, abducting an unspecified number of women.
Coming at a time the country’s security forces are busy battling all forms of terrorism and banditry in different parts of the country, especially in the North East and North West, the recent Kaduna kidnappings of over 280 women and school children, some of whom are orphans and Internally Displaced People (IDPs) is another slap on the face and is totally unacceptable.
According to an Amnesty International estimate in 2015, no fewer than 2,000 women and girls had been abducted by Boko Haram since 2014. The terrorist group began targeting schools in 2010, killing hundreds of students and forcing many into sexual slavery.
Boko Haram insurgency has prevented over 10,000 children from attending school as the group is known for kidnapping girls, whom it believes should not be educated, using them instead as cooks or sex slaves.
THEWILL recalls that on July 6, 2013, Boko Haram attacked Government Secondary School in Mamudo, Yobe State, killing at least 42 people, mostly students, and some staff members. On September 29, 2013, the group stormed the male hostel in the College of Agriculture in Gujba, Yobe State, killing 44 students and teachers.
While the Kaduna State government has promised to rescue the abducted as soon as possible, we want to agree with the First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, that kidnappers of women and children should face tougher sanctions and penalties instead of treating them with kid gloves.
Reacting, last Friday, to the recent abductions of over 200 women and children in Borno and another 280 in Kaduna, Senator Tinubu described the kidnappers as evil and cowards. She therefore called for the imposition of capital punishment for the kidnappers, urging the various state governors to act fast and do something about this ugly trend.
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