Negotiate now before bandits kill our children, parents tell El-Rufai

Parents of the 39 kidnapped students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in the Mando Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State have called on Governor Nasir El-Rufai, to negotiate with the bandits to safely release their children.

The parents showed serious concern that more than two weeks after their wards were abducted by gunmen who attacked their hostels; the students have not been released.

Top Naija had reported that the gunmen stormed the school on March 12 and abducted 23 female and 16 male students. The bandits later released a video and requested N500 million to release the students.

The Armed forces had also declared that they freed 180 who were kidnapped, but 39 students are still in the lair of the abductors.

One of the staff members of the school and a representative of the affected parents, Sani Friday, on Thursday, declared that the parents are frightened gunmen may murder their children if the government mobilise armed forces.

He talked while featuring on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ programme monitored by Top Naija.

Friday, whose two girls were among the students kidnapped, called on the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, to change his no-payment-of-ransom standpoint to ease the release of the students.

He said, “It is this state governor who sometimes ago told the entire Kaduna State that if it costs him to pay bandits to stop killing citizens of Kaduna State, he will pay them.

“Now, the state government came out even before the abduction of our students in the Federal College of Forestry that it is wrong to negotiate with bandits and that he is not going to negotiate.

“After that statement, this incident happened and it is based on that statement that the government is standing that it will not negotiate. But he (El-Rufai) made a statement before that he can do anything for the bandits to stop killing, so we want him to do something.

“One of the fears we have is that if the government feels that they can use force to bring out this children, it will be very disastrous because these bandits are well-equipped, they may decide to eliminate the children if they discover that the government is trying to use aggressive force on them because our children are being used as shields.

“The first way we want the government to go about this is to negotiate even if they want to put any other security measure on ground, it should be after the negotiation.”