Afaka abduction: Parents of students to protest at National Assembly

The parents of the remaining 29 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, Kaduna State will stage a protest at the National Assembly Abuja over the government’s failure to rescue their children from the bandits.

The parents said the unprecedented protest would hold if the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN), which supervises the college, fails to secure the release of their children by midnight of Thursday, April 29, 2021.

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Daily Trust recalled that 10 of the 39 students abducted on Tuesday, March 11, 2021 have already been released by their abductors in two batches of five each.

The Chairman of the Abducted Parents Forum, Usman Abdullahi and Catherine Y. Saleh, Secretary, made this threat in a statement issued in Kaduna after their April 26th meeting where events from the first day of the abduction on 11th March 2021 to date were reviewed.

According to them, 50 days after the abduction took place, there is no sign whatsoever that anything is being done at any level to secure the release of the remaining 29 students.

“As at the afternoon of Thursday, April 29, there was no inkling of hope from any government quarters, suggesting anything for the release of the 29 remaining abductees.

“At the National Assembly, we would seek the intervention of the Federal Parliamentarians to query the Minister of Environment whose ministry oversees the affairs of FRIN, which in turn oversees the affairs of the College where the children were abducted, over the continued captivity of the children.

“Since the 10 students were released in two batches of five each, the parents have been condemned to excruciating trauma over the continued captivity of their children, especially as they have been left to fight alone for the release of the children without any iota of concern shown by the FRIN towards securing their release,” they said.

The parents also expressed their outrage over the way the 10 released students were left to cater for themselves without any care whatsoever, especially in terms of medical checkup from any arm of government, as against the claim for such care by the government.