Army tracking abductors of Kogi students, says commander

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The Commanding Officer of the 21 Battalion, Nigerian Army, Godiya Monde, has said the gunmen who abducted four persons from an examination centre in Kogi State have made contact, and troops are working to trace their location.

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He said troops had also blocked all suspected crossing points to prevent the abductors from moving the victims further into the forest.

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Monde disclosed this on Thursday while addressing newsmen at the scene of the attack in Olowa, a community in the Dekina Local Government Area of the state.

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He said, “They’ve made some calls so far. We are tracking them to see where they are. I’m assuring you, we’re going to rescue those children.”

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The officer put the number of abductees at four, comprising two students, the school principal and a supervisor who was on ground for the National Examination Council examination.

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He said, “Two children were kidnapped students, including the principal and the supervisor that came for the NECO exam. We can have a total number of four, and presently, we are still searching for them, waiting for their call.”

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Monde said troops had moved into the bush in search of the assailants and had since sealed off all identified escape routes.

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He said, “That was how we sprung into action, went into the bush searching, and we have, presently, we have blocked all the suspected crossing points where we expect them to move with those children to.”

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The officer said the school, tagged a “miracle centre” for external candidates sitting the Literature in English paper, was in a remote part of the community, a factor that slowed the response of troops to the distress call.

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He said, “The issue is that this school is definitely isolated, and yeah, it’s actually tagged as a miracle centre for the students. Ten students were brought here for the Literature in English exams, and around 1600 hours, we got the call that the school was attacked.

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“Even to locate the school was not easy, but we finally got here with the aid of somebody from the community.”

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Monde said troops found exam scripts scattered on the ground on arrival, which was how they first confirmed that an attack had indeed taken place.

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He said, “When we got here, we saw some papers littered on the ground. That was when we confirmed that actually something of that nature must have taken place in these classes.”

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PUNCH Online had earlier reported that the attackers stormed the school on Tuesday evening while candidates were sitting the ongoing NECO examination, making off with the principal, a NECO ad hoc staff member and four students.

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The Kogi State Police Command confirmed the incident and said a combined team of security agencies had launched a search-and-rescue operation, adding that one of the abducted students had already been freed while efforts continued for the rest.

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The state government had also disclosed that two of the abducted NECO candidates were not regular students of the school but external candidates who had come to sit their papers at the centre, which it said was being used as a “miracle centre.”

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It said the arrangement did not conform to the security framework the state had put in place for the ongoing examinations, even as it insisted this did not lessen its duty to protect everyone caught up in the attack.

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The operation, according to the government, was ordered by Governor Usman Ododo and was being coordinated by the state’s Security Adviser, retired Commander Jerry Omodara, alongside the police, the Department of State Services, the Vigilante Service and local hunters.

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