No Ransom Was Paid For Release Of Niger Islamiyya Students – Senator

Mohammed Musa, senator representing Niger East district, Niger State, has claimed that no ransom was paid to secure the release of Islamiyya students in the state.

The students were kidnapped on May 30, 2021, when bandits stormed their school in Rafi Local Government Area of the state and whisked away 93 of them.

The abductors had demanded N110 million ransom for the children, who were released on Thursday after about three months in captivity.

However, the senator, in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, on Friday, said the state government has repeatedly said it will never pay ransom to bandits.

“The Niger State Government has made it very categorically clear and one of the policies of the state government His Excellency initiated, there is no payment of ransom for whatever reasons”, Musa said, dispelling reports that ₦110 million was paid to the bandits.

“I so much agree with him (Governor Abubakar Bello) because the more you give the ransom, the more the trade will continue because they have turned it into a trade. When they approached the government asking for ransom, the government felt it cannot go against its policy”.

The lawmaker explained that although the government did not pay a dime to the abductors, the distraught parents, however, sold their properties to secure the release of their children.

While noting that the government was not aware when the parents of the students parted with money to the bandits, one of the parents that took the money to the abductors was held back alongside the children.

According to the lawmaker, the state government got wind of the information when 13 of the kidnapped children escaped from their abductors.

“After they escaped, these people opened a new request. They now asked for more of the ransom and the state government insisted that they are not going to pay a kobo,” he added.

“These people now complained that they are feeding these children, they have spent so much of their money but the policy of the government is that no ransom will be given.

“They pleaded, the parents pleaded. I don’t know the number of calls Mr Governor was receiving from these parents but I have received so many calls appealing that we should do something about it.”