Governor Nasir El-Rufai

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State made a revelation on Thursday, 6 May, during a webinar organised by the Africa Leadership Group, tagged: ‘Developing a Viable Nation 2’. It was organised by Ituah Ighodalo, Pastor of Trinity House Church, Lagos.

He spoke about the abducted 29 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State. He revealed that the plan was to “attack and kill the bandits even if it meant some students would die in the process.”

Kaduna, according to him, is currently at war and “such would only be considered as collateral damage, a price we would be willing to pay instead of paying ransom.”
Before the bombardment could be carried out though, the bandits changed their hide-out, a situation that made the captives spend 30 days with the criminals.

According to the Kaduna Governor:

“We were going to attack them. We would lose a few students but we would kill all the bandits and we would recover some of the students. That was our plan. That was the plan of the air force and the army…

But they slipped through the cordon of the army. That is why they were not attacked.
“We know it is risky, we know in the process we may lose some of the abductees but it is a price we have to pay. This is war, there will always be collateral damage in war and we will rather do that than pay money because paying money has not solved the problem anywhere in the world.”