Kidnap of school children onslaught on education in north —ACF

Apex Northern socio-political group, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has described the abduction of school children in different parts of Northern Nigeria by bandits as an onslaught on education in the region.

The group which condemned the kidnapping of over 200 pupils and staff at the Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary School in Kuriga town, Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, said the various cases of kidnapping of students in the North indicated the parlous state of security in the country, which ultimately means that school children are a defensively vulnerable population.

In a statement issued on Saturday by ACF’s National Publicity Secretary of the group, Prof. Tukur Muhammad-Baba, the body called of the Federal Government to go beyond “bland and sterile directives to insisting on results within specific time frames.”

”As ACF had observed in July, 2023, when students of the Federal University Gusau were abducted (and sadly still in captivity), these disturbing incidents point to the very parlous state of security in the country, and specifically that schoolchildren are a defensively vulnerable population,” Muhammad-Baba said.

READ ALSO:Suspected bandits kidnap 15 students in Sokoto

“ACF unequivocally decries and condemns the incidents in strong terms and hereby calls for the immediate and unconditional return of the abducted students and pupils, unharmed, to their parents/guardians; Commiserates with the parents/ guardians of the pupils and students.

“ACF calls on all not to be discouraged and not to give the terrorists/bandits any chance to discourage and frighten us with their evil and cowardly tools of terror.”

The forum also had words for security forces in the country, telling them to adopt more effective strategies to end the scourge of terrorism in the country, while noting that a regional multi-pronged strategy against the terrorists operating in all contagious state would be more appropriate.

“In these regards, the security forces should never dither or stay on the course of plain ineptitude and ineffectiveness that characterise the current strategy to contain and stamp out terrorism throughout the country.”

The Forum also advocated for the “immediate deployment of new measures including the much-discussed Special Schools Security Scheme, the Schools Vigilante Force, Anti-Kidnapping Squads, etc., across the terror-prone states.”

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