By Aminu Garko
Mariga (Niger) – Gunmen have kidnapped five female students, one teacher and two gatemen of Tular Academy, Moruba, in Mariga Local Government Area of Niger.
The Commissioner of Police in the state, Alhaji Adamu Usman, disclosed this when he led a combined team of police and military personnel on a visit to the school to assess the situation.
Usman said the incident occurred on March 1, at about 1:45 a.m. at the school’s premises.
He said the assessment visit was to enable the Police Command to deploy additional security tactics to tackle insecurity effectively.
He said the command had already launched a manhunt to track down the attackers and rescue the victims.
“We have since deployed Special Technical Squad and Armed Anti-Kidnapping Squad to identified areas with a view to rescuing the victims unhurt,’’ the commissioner said.
He said in spite of the huge land mass of the state, security agencies working in the area were working in synergy to curtail security challenges.
According to him, the existing inter-state security agencies collaboration has greatly assisted in achieving most of the successes recorded in dealing with the security challenges in the state.
Usman lamented that the bandits capitalised on the telephone network problem in the area to attack the primary school in the night.
He explained that because of the problem, the command only got to know about the incident 24 hours after the attack had occurred.
He also blamed the porous nature of the school and poor location as factors that enabled the bandits to strike.
The commissioner warned that no amount of pressure and intimidation would deter the command from discharging its constitutional mandate of safeguarding lives and property of the people of the state.
He appealed to people in rural communities to report to the nearest security agencies any persons or groups of people with questionable character for prompt security response.
He also advised the rural dwellers to form local vigilance groups which would be screened by the Divisional Police Officer of Mariga toward complimenting the efforts of security agencies.
(NAN)
