Babatunji Wusu –
The Federal Government has revealed that schools in 14 states, including the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja, are vulnerable to attacks by robbers and insurgents.
Hajia Halima Iliya, the National Coordinator of Financing Safe Schools in Nigeria, claimed that data on at-risk schools had been collected for intervention.
She acknowledged the development when chatting with Punch on Sunday.
Iliya declined to name the states, but the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Hammed Abodunrin, said they were Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Benue, Yobe, Katsina, FCT, Kebbi, Sokoto, Plateau, Zamfara, and three others.
No fewer than 465 students, teachers, and women kidnapped in the last week remain in the captivity of their captors.
Fifteen students from an Islamiya school in Sokoto State were kidnapped early Saturday, less than 72 hours after 287 schoolchildren and teachers were abducted from the LEA primary school and the Government Secondary School in Kuriga, Kaduna State’s Chikun Local Government Area.
However, 28 of them were reported on Sunday to have escaped from 259 captivity.
Terrorists abducted 200 female internally displaced persons from Borno State just a few days before the Kaduna event.
The women were kidnapped in Ngala, the seat of Gambarou Ngala in Borno state, while gathering firewood in the jungle.
On Sunday, it was reported that nine of them had been released, leaving 191 in captivity.