The Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, says troops have identified the location of schoolgirls abducted on Monday in Kebbi State.
Twenty-five students of the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School Maga, in Danko Wasagu Local Government Area, were abducted by bandits. However, officials said one of the students later escaped and returned home.
Mr Matawalle, during a media briefing in Birnin Kebbi on Saturday, said significant progress had been made since the deployment of the security agencies to rescue the abducted schoolgirls.
“The issue of security is sensitive, but so far, the intelligence we had at hand shows that we are almost close to those children (the abducted school girls).
“Currently, we have deployed a lot of security agents to cover all and block most of the routes within Kebbi and Zamfara State and neighbouring Niger State. We need cooperation from the surrounding communities”, Mr Matawalle said.
President Bola Tinubu had on Thursday directed Mr Matawalle to relocate to Kebbi State over the abduction of the schoolgirls.
Mr Matawalle, a former governor of Zamfara State, was tasked with monitoring the security agencies’ rescue efforts.
He was the governor of Zamfara when, in 2021, bandits abducted 279 students at the Government Girls Science Secondary School, a boarding school in Jangebe, in Zamfara State.
Mass abductions of school children in the North-west and Niger State are common.
Another abduction of over 300 school children was recorded on Friday at St Mary’s School in Papir, Agwara Local Government Area of Niger State.
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Premium Times reported how amidst a deteriorating security climate and a surge in coordinated attacks on educational institutions especially in Northern Nigeria, the Katsina and Plateau state governments ordered the immediate closure of schools.
The directives were issued Friday, hours after the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) confirmed the abductions.
The closures also follow a similar directive by the federal government, which ordered the immediate shutdown of 47 Federal Unity Colleges—mostly in the North—citing the safety of students.