Attacks by armed gangs, commonly referred to as bandits, have increased in northwestern Nigeria in recent years. Four school kidnappings since December have sparked national outrage.
About 39 students, including a pregnant woman, are still missing in Thursday’s kidnapping of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, in northwestern Nigeria.
Samuel Aruwan, Kaduna’s state commissioner for internal security and internal affairs, said the police, military and others had repelled attacks on another school and a local government office near Kaduna airport.
“The state government of Kaduna expresses its unequivocal solidarity with the military, police, Ministry of State Services and other security forces, whose swift intervention prevented the bandits from abducting more people,” Aruwan said.
All 307 students at the Government Science Secondary School in Ikara were accounted for, Aruwan said, adding that the army and air force had also repelled an attack on the rooms of the senior personnel in the village of Ifira in the local government area of Igabi.
In that video, a student said their kidnappers wanted 500 million naira ($ 1.3 million) ransom.
“As a government, our focus is on retrieving our missing students and preventing new episodes of school kidnappings,” said Aruwan.
President Muhammadu Buhari, speaking in a video message on Twitter on Sunday, ordered states to address security concerns at every level and said military service chiefs would quickly address broader security issues.
“We will be very tough on the criminals,” he said, adding that “confidence in the administration must be restored within the next six weeks.”