Parents of the 39 abducted students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Mando Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State have begged the state Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, to negotiate with their children’s abductors to secure their release.
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The students, 23 females and 16 males, were kidnapped on March 12 after which the bandits released a video of them being whipped and demanded N500 million as ransom.
“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.
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“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,” Sani Friday, member of staff of the school representing affected parents, said on Channels TV on Thursday.
“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.
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“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.”
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Friday’s two daughters are also among the abducted students. He had on Monday given El-Rufai 48 hours to rescue the children.
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