Gunmen have stormed a government secondary school in Jangebe, Zamfara State, kidnapping students in their scores.
The school which is located within the Talata-Mafara local government area of the state came under siege at past midnight.
Confirming the incidents to Channels Television via a telephone conversation, the state commissioner for information, Hon. Suleiman Tunau Anka said the gunmen stormed the school around 1 a.m on Friday and abducted the students.
He, however, did not confirm how many students were kidnapped.
As of the time of filing this report, all attempts to reach police authorities in the state have proved abortive.
Sadi Kawaye, a parent who resides at Kawaye village in Aknka Local Government Area of the state, told Daily Trust that his daughters, Mansura and Sakina, were among those abducted.
“I’m on my to Jangebe now over this terrible situation. I was told they invaded the school around 1am,” he told our reporter over the phone.
When contacted, SP Muhammad Shehu, Police Public Relations Officer in Zamfara, said he could not react.
“Give me some time, I can’t say anything now,” he said.
News of the latest abduction comes less than two weeks after armed men broke into Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State.
The attackers had raided staff quarters and hostels, where they picked their victims and took them into the forest.
Although President Muhammadu Buhari ordered security agencies to ensure their immediate release, the victims are still in captivity.
On Thursday, Governor Sani Bello of Niger alleged that the federal government had abandoned the state on the issue of the release of Kagara victims.
In an audio that went viral on social media, a man who spoke on behalf of the captors of Kagara victims, threatened that they might starve to death.
This is the first time in Nigeria that gunmen will stage large-scale abduction of students from different schools in less than two weeks.
The first major attack on a school by an armed gang happened in Borno State, where over 300 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, were abducted on April 14, 2014.
Four years after, gunmen hit Government Girls’ Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe State, and abducted 119 students.
In December 2020, over 300 male students were abducted at Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State.
The recent abduction in Zamfara comes at a time when banditry is increasingly threatening the peace of the nation, especially from within the northeastern and northwestern region.