Eight persons, including five female students, a teacher and two gatemen, have been reportedly kidnapped by armed bandits in Niger state.
The victims were taken from Tular Academy at Moruba in Mariga local government area of Niger state.
Our reporter gathered that one of them later escaped from their abductors.
The state Commissioner of Police, Adamu Usman, confirmed the abduction on Wednesday when a combined team of police and military personnel visited the area.
CP Usman said no amount of pressure and intimidation will deter the police from discharging their constitutional mandate of safeguarding lives and properties of people in the state.
He explained that the assessment is to enable them deploy additional security tactics and manoeuvres to tackle insecurity in the state effectively.
He said despite the size of ten percent land mass of Niger state, security agencies working in the state are working in synergy to curtail the security challenges.
“The perfect inter-agency security collaboration existing between us had assisted greatly towards achieving most of the success we recorded and I call for more collaboration and support to defeat the bandits completely,” he said.
The Commissioner also lamented that the bandits have taken advantage of absence of network service to strike the primary school in the night.
He said that because of network problem, the Niger state police command only got to know 24 hours after the incident had occurred.
He also blamed the porous nature of the school and poor location as factors that enabled the bandits to take advantage of it.
He, however, advised the villagers to form local vigilante group which will be screened by the DPO in the area towards complimenting the efforts of security agencies.
