The 75 pupils of Government Day Secondary School, Kaya, in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State abducted on September 1, 2021, have regained freedom.
Following their release, the students and a teacher were received by Governor Bello Matawalle at the Government House in Gusau on Sunday evening, the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) reported.
“The seventy-five students of Government Day Secondary School Kaya in Maradun Local Government Area of Zamfara State abducted about two weeks ago regained freedom,” a news item on NTA’s Facebook page reads.
Nigerian Police had reported that gunmen abducted more than 70 students in the country’s northwest state of Zamfara.
Zamfara State Police spokesman, Mohammed Shehu, had said in a statement that a large group of attackers stormed the Government Day Secondary School in the remote village of Kaya that Wednesday morning, seizing the pupils.
Shehu had given the number of seized children as 73.
“The abduction followed the invasion of the school by large numbers of armed bandits,” he had stated.
Shehu said that Police rescue teams were working with the military to secure the release of the pupils.
The bandits later returned five of the pupils within 24 hours.
Kidnapping-for-ransom that targets school students and pupils, has been rife in Nigeria’s restive northeastern and northwestern regions since the turn of the year.
The military is currently launching an offensive against bandits in Zamfara.
The Zamfara State Government last week shut down telecommunication networks, suspended weekly markets and banned the sale of petrol in jerrycans, in a bid to rein in kidnappers and bandits wreaking havoc in the state.
