The parents of the remaining 29 students abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State have cried out that the abductors are threatening to marry off their daughter and kill the male students if ransom is not paid on time.
This newspaper reported that the students were abducted on Thursday, March 11, 2021, when bandits in their large numbers invaded their school located opposite the Nigerian Defence Academy along the Kaduna International Airport road.
10 of the students have regained their freedom, leaving 29 others in captivity.
The bandit abductors have requested N500 million as ransom but the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai declared that in line with his anti-negotiation tactics, the state would not be paying ransom to free the students.
But since March 25, parents of the students have defied the directive of the state government and vowed to negotiate with bandits to secure the release of their children.
The parents alleged that the governor was yet to address them since the abduction.
Speaking at a press conference in the school premises on Friday, the parents urged Nigerians to help raise funds for them to rescue their children.
The Secretary of the parent’s union, Friday Sanni who spoke on behalf of others said as parents, they have no choice but to pay the ransom for the release of their children.
“We are calling on Nigerians, non-governmental organisations, charity organisations and donors to come to our aid in donating to rescuer our children. We don’t know what is happening to them, the bandits have threatened to kill our children if we play with them.
“The other time they said the will marry the female and kill the men and that a time will come when even if we bring the money, the money will not be useful,” he said.
Sanni said since government has claimed that security agents recovered the two batches of 10 students earlier released, “let them do same to our remaining children.”
“The government has said any parent who negotiates with the bandits will be prosecuted but most of the parents are already arrested emotionally, our children today are faced with AK 47 guns on them. The faith of our children is what we don’t know, they have spent 36 days without clothing, food, clean drinking water or bathing,” he said.
