Abducted female students raise alarm as bandits threaten to marry them off

Four female students in Zamfara have raised the alarm over their abductors’ threat to marry them off if they fail to pay N12 million ransom within a week.

In a video tweeted by Makama Zagazola, a counter-insurgency expert and security analyst in the Lake Chad region, the victims – Aisha Yahaya, Jamila Yahaya, Ummu Sani, and Hauwa Garba – appealed to Governor Dauda Lawal to rescue them.

They were kidnapped along the Birnin Magaji-Kaura Namoda Road in Zamfara few weeks to the 2023 General Elections.

In the video, one of the girls said, “For God’s sake, our mothers, we are in big trouble. We have been here since the administration of the former government. We have spent 174 days inside the forest; that is almost six months.

How I found $80,000 in Makkah – Zamfara pilgrim

Zamfara is bankrupt, Governor cries out

“For the sake of God, our mothers, we have no one apart from you. Come and rescue us. The former governor could not rescue us. We are begging the new government of Dauda Lawal to help us.

“I am an orphan, my father is dead, please help us for God’s sake. My mother has no resources, please help us. These guys have vowed to marry us off within a week.”

Highlighting the plight of the victims, Zagazola said, “Sad! Imagine spending 170 days with bandits in a forest.”

The development comes one week after Governor Lawal met with the Chief of Defence Staff over the rising insecurity in Zamfara.

The North West state has been the hotbed of killings. Bandits have been on rampage in the state in the last few years – the development that has claimed hundreds of lives and raised concerns among local and international communities.

Recently, a former governor of the State, Sani Yerima, asked President Bola Tinubu to negotiate with terror gangs operating in the North West of the country

Yerima said the negotiation he was advocating was similar to what the administration of former President Umar Yar’Adua did with militants in the Niger Delta, which gave birth to the amnesty programme, but Governor Lawal kicked against it.