•Governor: we’re negotiating through Miyetti Allah
•IG deploys Special Squad
There is a rev up in the moves to rescue abducted pupils of Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State.
The military said on Wednesday it is determined to get the boys out “whichever way.”
Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Adamu has deployed a Special Squad in the state.
Governor Aminu Masari said there is an ongoing negotiation with the abductors through Miyetti Allah – a Fulani group.
Defence Headquarters spokesman Maj.-Gen. John Eneche told reporters that the military was not part of any form of negotiation with the abductors.
He said although the military acknowledged the right of the Aminu Masari government to “negotiate,” it was working on its own strategy to ensure the safe rescue of the remaining 316 schoolboys “whichever way.”
Seventeen of the 313 students abducted by bandits last weekend have returned from the forest where they were taken
The governor told Channels Television last night that the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN) was carrying out the negotiation on behalf of his administration.
He added however, that the government would not pay cash to the kidnappers.
He said he was working with the security agencies to ensure that no attempt was made to change the location of the children by the bandits.
He said: “The leadership of MACBAN is the one that we are talking with. The Commissioner of Police and Special Adviser on Security are discussing with the leaders of Miyetti Allah, who are also discussing with those that abducted the children.
“This is the way we are talking to them. I am waiting for the feedback on their discussion. We are doing all we could to get the children back but what we will not do is to negotiate money with the bandits.
“We should be more proactive with the information given to the security agencies. Everybody should be more involved by providing reliable information and not misleading information that would endanger the lives of the security operatives.
“I am a Chief Security Officer without security apparatus. No governor is a true chief security officer but that is our Constitution. We should do something about it but right now I have over 300 students to look for. I am concerned, more concerned than everyone else except perhaps the parents. I am accountable here and hereafter.
“It is the responsibility of the security agencies to do what they are supposed to under the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I am quite aware of my responsibility and I will support these security agencies till they get each and every one of the children. I am the leader; I am not shying away from my responsibilities.”
He said none of the missing students is dead, quashing fears about the safety of the boys.
“The children are alive and we have not received any report that anyone had fallen sick. So we assume that all is well with the children. I was in touch with at least two of the students that escaped on Saturday. I was also in touch on Monday with two that came back.”
Masari also refuted the claim by the Boko Haram that its members abducted the pupils, saying that “from the information available to us, this was conducted, executed by local bandits that are known to all of us.”
He added: “These are bandits that are roaming the forests of Zamfara and parts of Kaduna State. So far, this is the information we have. Whatever role any other terrorist group must have played, we are yet to confirm it.
“But with regards to this abduction, we have not seen any direct involvement of Boko Haram or ISWAP.”
The Coordinator, Defence Media Operation, while giving an update on the military operations across the country said: “I don’t know from history where the military or the armed forces go into negotiations when it comes to ransom and I don’t have any record.
“Nothing is connecting the armed forces with negotiation. If the governor believes in that as a father, he is seeing it in a larger perceptive.
“We are going on with our operations, and we don’t step down our kinetic operations for any reason at all. There is nowhere in the world where you stop your kinetic operation; it is a total package because purported negotiations are going on. It is not done. We will rescue the school children whichever way, that’s what I can assure you.”
Gen. Enenche restated that none of the abducted boys was dead.
He said: “Nobody is dead; we have not received anything that anybody is dead from the information that we have monitoring the situation and then the troops are on guard as it were.
“They have started patrolling the whole of that area to ensure that they are intact and that we rescue them alive.”
He also explained why troops could not foil the kidnapping of the students despite arriving the scene during the attack.
He said the troops could not engage the bandits in gun fuel because the bandits used the students as body shields.
“When the troops came, it was not in the best interest of saving lives to start exchanging direct fire, of course firing to scare the bandits was done but not direct fire because the children were being used as human shields.
“What is the end objective when you come to rescue and end up killing those you came to rescue; it will amount to nothing. Of course in the hours of darkness, while that ensued they removed the children.”
Gen. Enenche also dismissed the reported claim by the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, that the schoolchildren were abducted by his men.
He said the claim was the usual propaganda of the terrorist group, adding that the military had continued to record successes against insurgents in the Northeast and bandits in the Northwest.
IG deploys Special Forces in Katsina
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, has directed the immediate deployment of special forces in the state to ensure quick rescue of the children.
Spokesman for the Katsina Police Command Gambo Isa said the Special Forces led by Deputy Police Commissioner Abba Kyari were directed on Monday by Adamu to hit the ground running.
Isa said: “We cannot easily forget how he (Kyari) led a team of detectives to rescue Buhari’s inlaw in Daura”.
He also told The Nation in a telephone interview that the command had received a full complement of needed logistics and equipment from Abuja to ensure a hitch-free search for the missing boys.
“We are now fully mobilised and have intensified the search for the missing boys; very soon, you will hear the good news from us,’’ he said.
Police, protest planners meet in Katsina
The Katsina Police command has met with the leadership of the Concerned Northern Groups (CNG) to discourage them from their planned protest in Daura.
When The Nation visited the command headquarters yesterday afternoon, some of the group’s leaders were seen coming out of the meeting.
It was however not clear if the protest would still commence today as scheduled.
The CNG had said the protest, which it intended to take to President Muhammadu Buhari in his country home in Daura, was to compel action to rescue the schoolboys alive.
Spokesman for the group, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said in a statement before the meeting that the protest was harsh-tagged #Bringbackourboys.
According to CNG, “The exercise, harsh tagged #Bringbackourboys which will kick off in Katsina on Thursday is expected to proceed to Daura to register the current concerns with Mr President.”
Security architecture compromised, says CAN
The leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said that the abduction of the pupis has shown that security architecture under President Buhari has been compromised.
CAN described the abduction as another tragic chapter in the history of the country.
It said the kidnap of the schoolboys also exposed the “failure of both the government and the security agencies to learn from the abduction of 276 Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 in Borno State and 110 schoolgirls at the Government Girls’ Science and Technical College in Dapchi, in Yobe State in 2018.”
CAN’s position is contained in a statement yesterday by Pastor Adebayo Oladeji, Special Assistant (Media and Communications) its President, Rev. Samson Ayokunle.
CAN also called for the suspension of boarding facilities in all the private and government schools in the North until security situation improves.
It faulted Buhari for not honoring the invitation of the National Assembly to explain the deplorable security situation in the country.
The statement reads in part: “President Buhari should remember that history is being written about him with the way he is addressing all these security challenges just as we are talking about the Chibok schoolgirls and the Jonathan administration.
“We advise President Buhari to revisit all his electioneering promises on security and compare them with what the security has become under his watch.
“The country is almost becoming a failed nation.”
Like CAN, the National Coalition of Interfaith Group of Nigeria (NCIGN) flayed Buhari’s indifference to the growing call to rejig the nation’s security architecture.
The group particularly frowned at the President’s inaction over the demand for the sack of the service chiefs and implementation of some far-reaching resolutions of the National Assembly on insecurity as very disturbing.
The organisation made its feelings known in a statement by its National Coordinator, Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim and Co-Coordinator, Bishop John Adebayo.
NASFAT pleads with abductors
Also on Wednesday, the Nasru-Lahi-l-Fatih Society (NASFAT), Chief Missioner, Imam Abdul-Azeez Onike, appealed to “the abductors to become the ones from whom compassion and love flourish, and not the ones who is enemy and tormentor of mankind.”
Onike, who called on all parents to pray for quick return of the abducted students, added: “Islam abhors aggression in whatever form and forbids banishing people from their homes unjustly. Such acts have punishments prescribed for them under Islamic laws.”
