It’s Risky For Kagara Abductees To Stay Long In Captivity – Ejiofor

The former Director of the Department of State Services, Mike Ejiofor, on Thursday, noted that it is not safe for 27 students and 15 workers of Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State, to stay long in the den of bandits.

Ejiofor while speaking with Punch said, “The earlier they (abductees) are released, the better. The longer they stay, the more their lives will be threatened and that will create more problems. The government should do everything possible to ensure that they are released in good time.”

Recall that bandits abducted the students and staff of GSC, Kagara on February 17, 2021, while a student was killed during the attack.

The Federal Government had sent a delegation including the Minister of Defence, Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (retd.); and the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd); to Minna, the Niger State capital, to work with the state government and security agencies on the release of the abductees.

Meanwhile, seven officers of the Nigerian Air Force scheduled to conduct surveillance missions over Niger to secure the release of the Kagara abductees who died in a plane crash last Sunday.

The former director of DSS while speaking on the development said, “there is hope that they will be released. The other ones have been released. They (bandits) want money, once they get money, they will release them (the abductees)”.

The bandits on Wednesday threatened to starve the students and staff to death if the government fails to pay their ransom on time.

However, Ejiofor described the threat as a way of mounting pressure on the government to accede to their demands.

“It is a way of trying to put the government under pressure to give them money. They will feed them because if they don’t feed them and they die, I don’t think there is any way to collect money.”

“Before I used to say that government should not pay the ransom because it encourages bandits to collect more money. But if your brother or your sister is involved, you will only approve that government should pay but we cannot continue like this, government should prevent this thing from happening so that we don’t continue to pay the ransom. It is threatening our security,” Ejiofor added.