Kagara: We Won’t Pay Ransom, says Lai Mohammed

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on Saturday, said the Federal Government is not considering paying ransom to secure the release of the abducted students and staff of Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State.

On Wednesday, armed men broke into the school premises while students and staff were asleep.

• Uncertainty over identity of Kagara school attackers
• Kagara: Bandits ‘operated unchallenged for two hours

After raiding hostels and staff quarters, they whisked away 27 students, three teachers, some non-teaching staff members and nine family members.

A student who attempted to escape was gunned down while a teacher was lucky to escape.

Speaking when he featured on a Channels Television Programme on Saturday morning, Mohammed dismissed social media reports that the federal government has paid N800,000 milli0n ransom.

“We employ kinetic and non-kinetic (measures), you don’t throwaway invitation to engage but the overall strategy you keep to your chest.”

“Bandits all over the world work with psychology of people. Deliberately, they target women and children because this is what will attract a lot of global outcry. That is exactly what bandits do all over the world.

“The government has put in place, all along, various strategies to contain banditry, to fight insurgency, to fight kidnapping. Some of these measures are kinetic, some are not kinetic. We didn’t get here overnight and that is why it is difficult to get out one day.

“Criminality in any form will not be tolerated by government. At the same time, government has a duty to look at the underlining causes of some of these criminalities in other to address them.

“I was in Minna with my colleagues, the Ministers of Interior and Police Affairs, the IG, and the National Security Adviser on Wednesday to get a firsthand information on the abduction of these Kagara schoolboys. I can tell you that as at today that the government is on top of the matter.”