Richard Elesho/ Lokoja
One of the students of Government Science College Kagara, Niger State lucky to escape recent abduction in the school has narrated how the gunmen who kidnapped his colleagues callously killed one of his friends in the course of the criminal action.
He said his friend was trying to escape when he ran to the evil men who immediately fired three shots at him. The narrator watched from a hidden point, as his friend went down, dead in a pool of blood.
He narrated his experience on the British Broadcasting Service, BBC Hausa Service, in a report monitored by Daily Trust
He recalled that the incident happened about 2am when one his fellow students wanted to use the toilet. He became suspicious and frightened when he saw people with torch light coming towards the school and immediately alerted others.
“I told him that he shouldn’t be afraid, nothing will happen. But he went alone with his torch light. When they noticed that someone was coming towards their direction they turned off their lights,” the student said.
He said they did not know that the people were bandits until they entered their rooms and started pointing guns at them.
“They told us not to shout or misbehave or else they will kill us. When one of us noticed this, he shouted that everybody should run, that thieves have entered the hostel and that was when people began to run out of the hostels.”
“One of my friends left our room and met them on his way to their hostel. When he attempted to run, they shot at him three times in his head, back and stomach and he died.”
‘How I escaped’
The student further revealed that he hid in one part of the room with 10 of his roommates and luckily the bandits did not see them despite searching the room thoroughly.
“They searched everywhere in the room but they did not see us. We hid in one corner where nobody can notice our presence, so they left us there. What really touched my heart was how they killed my friend while I was watching.
“I saw his corpse and it really touched my heart. I cried so much,” he said.
He said the bandits, who were in military uniform, spent almost three hours there and did not come with a vehicle, adding that they marched away after capturing the victims.
The Kagara incident is the fourth major mass abduction of people from educational institutions in Nigeria in about half a decade. Boko Haram insurgents pioneered the dangerous phase on 15th April 2014 with the abduction of 276 mostly Christian Chibok girls in Borno State.
That was followed by an attack on a school in Dapchi, Yone State on 19th February 2018. 110 terrified female students were whisked away in the attack. On 12th December, 2020 while President Muhammodu Buhari was on holiday in Daura, his hometown Katsina State, evil men visited Kankara, also in the State and abducted more than 300 students from a school in the town.
In other parts of the country regular clashes between farmers and herders, killings, banditry and kidnappings have also been on the rise. Insecurity has dominated furious debates all over the country in recent times.