March 26, (THEWILL) – Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has challenged the Federal Government to explain to Nigerians why none of the bandits who abducted the school children in Kaduna was arrested if it claims that no ransom was paid before the release of the 137 pupils.
THEWILL reports that the reaction followed claims by the Federal Government that President Bola Tinubu kept to his promise that no ransom would be paid to kidnappers to secure the release of the pupils of LEA Primary School and Government Secondary School abducted by bandits who attacked Kuriga Community on March 7, in Kaduna State.
While the bandits had earlier demanded N1 billion ransom to free their hostages, Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, in a statement on Sunday, said the school pupils, comprising 76 females and 61 males, were rescued in Zamfara State in the early hours of Sunday, through the joint efforts of the military and local authorities.
Speaking on Monday, after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, told State House correspondents that President Tinubu kept to his promise to rescue the schoolchildren without any ransom.
“As promised by Mr. President, they have been rescued. No ransom was paid,” he said.
However, reacting to the claim, HURIWA, through its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, berated the Government for what it described as highly unnecessary propaganda.
According to him, “If the children were actually rescued, can we know why not one of these abductors was killed, wounded or captured by the rescuers?
“We really cannot figure out why the government is inundating Nigerians with cock-and-bull stories of whether ransom was paid or not. If the government claims they didn’t pay ransom to get the children freed and if these children were rescued as we were told, were they abandoned in one corner of the Zamfara Bush by the terrorists? Why was no single terrorist injured if this was a rescue operation? Why didn’t the soldiers or security agents arrest any of these terrorists?”
Onwubiko urged Idris to be circumspect in his statement about the condition of health of the schoolchildren so his public comments do not appear too patronising or sugar-coated to make the terrorists/kidnappers appear like Father Christmas or nice guys.
He berated the Minister over his remarks that none of the kidnapped children was harmed, adding that the criminal act of violently abducting children from their schools and ferrying them into the lawless forests in far-away Zamfara is one of the crudest and most gruesome emotional and psychological tortures that children of those ages can face.
“Can we find out from the Minister what exactly he wants to achieve by saying that ‘none of the children suffered any harm as they were safely brought back.
“We honestly think that this statement is actually not from the Honourable Minister because it almost reminded us of someone under the spell of Stockholm syndrome. But we are sure that the Honourable Minister of Information and National Orientation is in no way under any spell but we wish he can very quickly correct this misconception he has circulated about this satanic kidnapping of so large a group of school children.
“The Honourable Minister should be told that the children indeed suffered massive psychological shock and awe, and emotional distress and truly they underwent a series of emotional traumatic episodes and the best thing to do is for these children to be professionally counselled by psychologists so they can overcome those distressing experiences they have just undergone in the hands of terrorists who were armed and ready to kill.
“Nobody should ever have to go through the emotional tortures that these school children were subjected to for days. The truth is that the government failed in its primary constitutional duty to protect the lives of citizens, including those of such vulnerable members of our society. To imagine that heads didn’t roll in the security agencies for this abysmal failure of intelligence is to conclude that this Government is in bed with impunity and lawlessness,” he said.
HURIWA, however, welcomed the decision of the Federal Government to invite Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, for questioning “who from his public statements appears very sympathetic to terrorists”.
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