The Nigerian government on Saturday, February 20, 2021, said it will not pay ransom to secure release of the abducted students and members of staff of Government Science College, Kagara.
365Daily had earlier reported how gunmen suspected to be bandits stormed the school on Wednesday, abducting many students and workers.
While one student who tried to escape was gunned down, a staff member luckily escaped from captivity.
According to the state government, 27 students, three teachers, two non-teaching staff and nine family members of the staff staying in the quarters were taken away by the gunmen.
Speaking on Saturday while featuring on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the government wouldn’t tolerate any form of criminality.
When asked if the government had paid ransom or was considering ransom payment, the minister said, “No”.
He said, “Bandits all over the world work with the psychology of people. Deliberately, they target women and children because this is what will attract a lot of global outcries. That is precisely what bandits do all over the world.
“The government has put in place, all along, various strategies to contain banditry, to fight insurgency, to fight kidnapping. Some of these measures are kinetic; some are not kinetic. We didn’t get here overnight, so it is difficult to get out one day.
“Criminality in any form will not be tolerated by the government. At the same time, the government must look at the underlining causes of some of these criminalities in other to address them.
“I was in Minna with my colleagues, the Ministers of Interior and Police Affairs, the IG, and the National Security Adviser on Wednesday to get firsthand information on the abduction of these Kagara schoolboys. I can tell you that as of today, the government is on top of the matter.”