The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has called on Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara state to name the kidnappers of 317 girls from Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, to end incessant kidnapping of school children.
Governor Matawalle had said recently that he knew the identity of the kidnappers even while the girls are under the bandits’ custody, but now that they have been released, ACF asked the governor to name the kidnappers and shame the devil. In the alternative, security agencies should consider him as an accomplice to the act of kidnapping.
ACF noted that the emerging trend of kidnapping of schoolchildren, which started in Kankara, Katsina state, but has now been taken to Kagara in Niger state and from boys to girls in Jangebe, Talata Mafara local government of Zamfara state, is dangerous for Nigeria and could drag the North backward.
ACF national chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, in a statement Tuesday said, “The ACF is stunned by a statement accredited to the Zamfara governor, Bello Mutawalle.
“The governor was reported in the media to have told 17 emirs who paid a sympathy visit to him on the kidnap of 317 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School Jangebe in Talata Mafara that he knew the identity of the kidnappers and if he revealed their identity, Nigerians would be shocked.
“We ask the governor to reveal their identity and let Nigerians be shocked or even the heavens fall. We also ask the security agencies to question the governor on the identities of the criminals he is trying to hide. If he refuses to disclose their identities, he must be treated as an accomplice to the criminal act of kidnapping.
“The ACF has been embarrassed by the spate of kidnapping, especially of schoolchildren spreading like wild fire all over the North. People in positions of authority that will help us out of this mess like Governor Mutawalle must stop embarrassing the North and the country with careless statements on a serious issue like the kidnapping of school children.
“Zamfara state and the North are way behind the rest of the country in educational development. The serial kidnappings of school pupils in the North will only worsen a bad and unacceptable state of education in the North,” Chief Ogbe said.
