Bandits have again attacked Bethel Baptist School, a private college in the Maraban Rido area of Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, and abducted an unspecified number of the Baptist students.
The report said the kidnappers invaded the school located along the Kaduna – Kachia road in the early hours of Monday and started shooting sporadically into the air before the kidnapping of the students.
Four of the students escaped while the rest were taken away by the bandits to an unknown destination.
The Kaduna State and other parts of the north-western region have continued to experience the scourge of banditry attacks.
The Kaduna state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has been one of the few governors that have reportedly kicked against the payment of ransom to kidnappers.
El-Rufai administration has reiterated that the state government has no money to pay bandits amid the renewed attacks by the armed groups in the state.
The governor has associated the recent bandits’ attacks on communities in the state to his government’s decision that it would not negotiate with bandits.
“We have a feeling that the renewed attacks in Kaduna are not unconnected to the position that we have taken as a government that we will not negotiate with criminals,” El-Rufai said when he was a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
He added, “We will not give them any money and they will not make any profit from Kaduna; anyone that comes to Kaduna will not get a penny from the state government, except he will get a bullet instead.”
According to Governor El-Rufai, the security challenges being witnessed in the northwest region of the country have been existing for some years and gradually evolving and getting worse with time.
He was confident that while the state government does not have any reason to change his position, the military would wipe out the bandits from the region.
The governor stressed that the government would continue to protect the people of the state and their properties, no matter the antics of the armed men.
