Reunions with their parents started late in the day.
“I haven’t been able to sleep since this incident, but now I can sleep,” said Salisu Kankara, a parent of one of the schoolboys who was released.
The relatively quick release of the more than 330 boys took place after a quick response from the government, which apparently learned from previous mass school kidnappings, especially from the Chibok schoolgirls, which did not have such a happy outcome.
The students ‘nightmare started on the night of December 11 when they were seized by men armed with AK-47 rifles from the Government Science Secondary School boys’ school in Kankara village, Katsina state in northwestern Nigeria. They were pulled through a forest and forced to lie in the dirt in the midst of gunfights between their captors and the troops that were chasing them.
The boys described walking through the bush and various forests, stopping during the day and walking without shoes at night and stepping over thorns and stones.
Boko Haram’s jihadist rebels in Nigeria have claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, saying they attacked the school because they believe Western education is un-Islamic.
While the boys’ parents eagerly awaited news, many in Nigeria and around the world braced themselves for prolonged hostage-taking. Many feared that the boys would be forced to become child soldiers for Boko Haram.
But the kidnapping reached an unexpectedly satisfying climax when Katsina governor Aminu Bella Masari announced the release of 344 boys late Thursday night.
“I think we can say … we recovered most of the boys, if not all,” he said.
Masari told The Associated Press that no ransom was paid to secure the boys’ freedom. It is not known whether other concessions have been made.
Masari said the government will work with the police to increase security in the Kankara School and other schools. According to the students, only one police officer was working at the school when it was attacked.
The kidnapping of the schoolboys was a chilling reminder of Boko Haram’s earlier attacks on schools, most notably the mass kidnapping in April 2014 by Boko Haram of more than 270 schoolgirls from a government boarding school in Chibok in northeast Borno State . About 100 of those girls are still missing.
“The difference, we know in this case, is that the government acted faster,” said Bulama Bukarti, an analyst for Sub-Saharan Africa at the Tony Blair Institute.
In Chibok, it took weeks of advocacy and outrage from Nigerians, celebrities and the international community before the government acknowledged that the girls had been kidnapped and took action. During that time, Boko Haram had the opportunity to place the girls in smaller groups and move them far away so that it would be difficult to find them.
This time, the government quickly deployed troops after the kidnapping of the boys, and the kidnappers were quickly surrounded, Bukarti said.
Their release is “a fantastic story at the end of an awful week,” he said. “Parents will be reunited with their loved ones … all of Nigeria will breathe a sigh of relief for a happy ending.”
UNICEF Nigeria representative Peter Hawkins called on the attackers to release other children who may be detained from these or other attacks.
“Schools must be safe. Children should never be the target of an attack, and yet, far too often in Nigeria, they are just that – victims of attacks on their schools,” he said.
He called on the Nigerian government to take better measures “to ensure that schools are safe and that all Nigerian children can learn without fear”.
President Muhamadu Buhari welcomed the boys’ release and met them all Friday, encouraging them to continue their education despite the attacks and kidnapping they endured.
“This little difficulty that you have faced in life should not deter you. You have to prepare, wake up and pursue your dreams in life,” he said. “Since I went to school, I rose to the position of president twice, so education is the key to success.
After their release late Thursday, Buhari said his government should do more to protect schools from such attacks and to protect the lives and property of Nigerians. Recognition that the Northwest is a real challenge to its government.
Many thorny problems remain in Nigeria.
The kidnapping shows that Boko Haram has been able to recruit armed gangs in northwestern Nigeria, a worrying sign as the criminal gangs have carried out more attacks in the region this year, killing more than 1,100. While the bandits have no ideological motives, Bukarti said, it has become clear that Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau has been able to form alliances with some of them.
“Shekau started courting some bandits,” Bukarti said in January, referring to a video launched by the leader of Boko Haram explaining his ideology and speaking in Fulani, the language of most of the bandits, for the last 15 minutes. in the Northwest, including those who spoke in the video released by Boko Haram this week. Later Boko Haram claimed they had penetrated parts of the northwest.
While that future may not be clear, the boarding school kidnapping shows that there was clearly recruitment and Bukarti says he would go so far as to call some of these local gangs now Boko Haram employees.
Boko Haram could expand their reach northwest, he said, adding that they also received publicity.
“This was a major propaganda point and it is surviving Boko Haram and terrorist groups,” he said.
While the government responded quickly to this kidnapping – they had a rescue mission the next day – there remains criticism of the government’s handling of violence and how it will continue to grow in the West African country.
Many Nigerians blame Buhari for the country’s security concerns and the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) says the kidnapping of the students in Katsina, the president’s home state, while he was visiting there, raises further serious questions about the government’s ability to fight the insurgency.
The PDP said President Buhari’s inability to manage Nigeria’s security has opened the country “to terrorists, bandits, vandals and insurgents.”
The attack on the Kankara school highlights the weakness of Nigeria’s security institutions, Prof. Odion-Akhaine said. He fears the country is slipping into anarchy as a result of growing uncertainty.
“If there is anarchy in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, it will have serious consequences for the sub-region,” he said.
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