… as abductors release one student
There were fears last night on the fate of 16 abducted students of Greenfield University, Kaduna.
The kidnappers on Monday gave Tuesday’s deadline for the payment of N100 million ransom or they would kill the students in their custody.
The parents said they had collectively paid N55 million and had no other money to pay.
What further heightened the parents’ fear is the release of one of the 17 students being held on to after killing five of the 22 students they kidnapped on April 20.
It was learnt on Tuesday that before they asked for the N100 million ransom, as announced by their spokesman who identified himself as Sani Jalingo during an interview with Voice of America (VOA) Hausa Service, the abductors had requested individual parents to pay N20 million.
Mrs. Lauretta Attahiru, mother of the freed student confirmed the release of her child, but did not give the conditions that led to his release.
Some of the parents said that Mrs Attahiru is the wife of a retired Army officer.
A parent said last night: “We don’t know their health situation; we don’t know whether they are eating or they are not eating. We don’t know the treatment or maltreatment they are going through.”
Another said: “They (bandits) have not changed their stand from what they said on VOA. They are still insisting on N100 million ransom.
“As it is now, we don’t know what to do, because we cannot raise such money as parents. We are calling on the government, particularly the Federal Government; we are begging that they should do whatever it takes to rescue our children from the forest or bush where they have been for so many days now.”
In a related development, parents of the 29 abducted College of Forestry Mechanisation students, also in Kaduna State, protested the non-release of their chairman.
On March 11, gunmen abducted 39 students of the college but later freed 10.
The parents appealed for the intervention of the National Assembly members to facilitate the release of their children.
Dressed mainly in black, the parents arrived at the National Assembly gate accompanied by leaders of the school’s students’ union and civil society groups. They accused the school management of not doing anything to secure the students’ freedom.
