The abducted Lagos schoolchildren
It is two months now since kidnappers abducted six children from the Igbonla Model College in Epe area of Lagos State in a pre-dawn raid. The raid which occurred on Thursday May 24th 2017 bore the marks of a new level of sophistication and audacity in the tactics of kidnapping in Nigeria. First of all […]
It is two months now since kidnappers abducted six children from the Igbonla Model College in Epe area of Lagos State in a pre-dawn raid. The raid which occurred on Thursday May 24th 2017 bore the marks of a new level of sophistication and audacity in the tactics of kidnapping in Nigeria. First of all the kidnappers wrote to the school earlier of their intention to carry out the raid. Then a combined team of police and soldiers were mobilised to the school that repelled the assailants when the latter eventually came. However after the encounter between the security operatives and the assailants, which entailed a gun battle, the security team left the school and the kidnappers took their time to raid it again and take away their captives.
The assailants had accessed the then unguarded school through an adjoining creek, cut a hole in the school fence and broke down the boys’ dormitory doors to pick up ten students initially. On leaving the school premises the assailants stopped somewhere to profile the students’ backgrounds in order to ascertain their individual family backgrounds, before releasing four and going away with six. The missing six students are Peter Jonah, Isaq Rahmon, Adebayo George, Judah Agbamu, Pelum Philips and Faruoq Yusuf. The assailants had made early contact with the parents of the abducted children asking for a total sum of N1 billion for their release. There are reports that some of the parents had obliged the kidnappers with various sums of money which remain a far cry from the initial demand. Meanwhile the Police claim they have arrested at least three of the suspects while the search for the rest of the dangerous gang continues.
If the Igbonla Model College kidnap case enjoys rave public attention, such is deserved as the circumstances raise many questions. Beyond the fact that it portrayed a new face of kidnapping in Nigeria, it also indicts the security agencies in their approach to the growing scourge of heinous crimes in the country. The fact that the assailants had earlier written a threat letter to the school and actually attacked as threatened, should have availed the security operatives the necessary advance preparations to handle the crisis better. More so is the fact that the engagement between the security agents and the assailants involved a gun battle. That development should have engendered a more robust all-out response from the authorities to get on top of the job. Their failure to act accordingly was accentuated by their hasty retreat from the targeted school premises soon after the encounter with the assailants, and the ease with which the assailants eventually raided the now unguarded school and picked up the defenceless students like sitting ducks.
However, all is not lost even as the Police have raised the hope of resolving the crisis and securing the safety of the kidnapped children. A breakthrough by the Police in this matter will not only help assuage the dilemma of the parents but all Nigerians who are now ill at ease with the growing audacity, frequency, sophistication and often mind boggling demands of the kidnappers. Currently in the news is the case of one ‘Evans’ who had turned out to the poster boy of kidnappers in Nigeria given the superlative dimension to which he took the crime. The Igbonla affair only shows that even as despicable as the Evans exploits are, there are other kidnappers like him or are even more sophisticated than him out there. And until they are taken off the streets of this country, there cannot be respite from the agonies of their activities. That is what Nigerians expect of the Police.