How bandits abducted judge’s son around NDA

The invasion of the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna has thrown up more issues of insecurity at the elite institution.

The NDA, a military university based in Kaduna, trains officer cadets for commissioning into the three services of the Nigerian Armed Forces: the army, the navy and the air force.

Apart from specialised and conventional postgraduate programmes, the academy also offers strategic military courses for officers from neighbouring countries.

On Tuesday, gunmen broke into the academy and killed two personnel while a major was abducted.

The incident had sent a wave of shock across the country.

But a military source told Daily Trust about several embarrassing incidents at the NDA and other military formations.

The source said the authorities need to act quickly to check trend.

“About two years ago, a cadet who was few days to his passing out from the NDA was abducted by bandits.”

“He was the son of a judge from one of the North Central states…A ransom was paid to the bandits before he was released.”

Another source told one of our correspondents that it was easy for anyone to get into NDA because security at the gate was porous.

“They don’t do proper checking because sometimes they ask you to identify yourself but in most instances, they don’t. All kinds of people get access to the institution easily which is unlike a regimented area,” he said.

Another source said the bandits’ den was not far from the academy and wondered why they could not be checkmated.