The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, in the state, SP Gambo Isah, revealed this in a statement issued on Friday in Katsina.

He said: “On Friday, July 23, 2021, at about 14:30hrs, bandits in their numbers, on motorbikes, armed with AK 47 rifles, blocked Jibia-Batsari Road, exactly at Kabobi Village, Batsari LGA.

“The hoodlums attacked and kidnapped all the occupants of a motor vehicle, Volkswagen Passat Wagon, and whisked them away into the forest.

“On receipt of the report, DPO Batsari led teams of Operation Puff Adder and ‘Sharan Daji’ to the area and engaged them in a gun duel and successfully rescued eight of the victims.

“Those rescued include a 70-year-old man, 13-year-old girl, three 12 years old girls, all from Garin Inu Village, Batsari LGA of Katsina State.

“Another 20-year-old girl, and her two children, all from Turaku Quarters in Batsari LGA of Katsina State,” Isah confirmed.

He explained that search parties were still combing the area with a view of arresting the fleeing bandits and to rescue the remaining three missing persons as investigation was ongoing.

Source: NAN

The post Banditry: Police foil attack, rescue eight victims in Katsina appeared first on Frontpageng.

Guterres’ reaction came in a statement by UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric on Monday in New York.

He called for “immediate and unconditional” release of no fewer than 300 male students, the attackers reportedly abducted from the school.

“The secretary-general strongly condemns the Dec. 11 attack on a secondary school in Katsina State, Nigeria and the reported abduction of hundreds of boys by suspected armed bandits.

“He calls for the immediate and unconditional release of the abducted children and for their safe return to their families.

“The secretary-general reiterates that attacks on schools and other educational facilities constitute a grave violation of human rights.”

The UN chief urged security agencies to arrest and bring those responsible for the heinous act to justice.

He reaffirmed the “solidarity and support” of the organisation to the Federal Government and Nigerians in their fight “against terror, violent extremism and organised crime.”

The UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has also flayed the abduction and called for the boys’ immediate release.

In a statement, the agency said it is “deeply concerned about these acts of violence,” describing attacks on schools as a violation of children’s rights.

“UNICEF condemns in the strongest possible terms this brutal attack and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all children and their return to their families.”

Its Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Marie-Pierre Poirier, issued a separate statement expressing solidarity with the families of the students and their communities.

Poitier said that the violence was a “grim reminder” that abductions of children and widespread grave violations of children’s rights continue to take place in the northern part of Nigeria.

“Children should feel safe at home, in schools and in their playgrounds at all times.

“We stand with the families of the missing children and the community affected by this horrifying event,” she said.

Source: NAN

The post UN demands `immediate, unconditional’ release of Katsina schoolboys appeared first on Frontpageng.

The revelation was made on Saturday by the Presidency in a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu.

He said as at the time the statement was issued, there was no student casualty.

His words: “In the latest briefing received by the president from Governor Aminu Bello Masari, with whom he has been in touch, and the Army Chief of Staff, General Tukur Buratai, the military, supported by air power was said to have located the bandits’ enclave at Zango/Paula forest in Kankara and there have been exchange of fire in an ongoing operation.

“Police said so far, there had not been report of any casualty among the students.”

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the reinforcement of security of all schools in Katsina State in line with the safe schools policy of his administration.

The directive was given by the president in view of the attack on the school in Katsina by bandits.

The bandits were said to have attacked the school on Friday at about 9.40 p.m. but were engaged by policemen on duty.

According to Mallam Garba Shehu, the president while condemning the attack on the school ordered security agents to go after the bandits.

He urged the school authorities to carry out an audit of the population of the students following shootings in and around the school that sent hundreds of them fleeing and scrambling over perimeter walls.

Parents who rushed to the school and removed their children and wards were also required to notify the school and police authorities in order to have a full account of the school population.

“I strongly condemn the cowardly bandits’ attack on innocent children at the Science School, Kankara. Our prayers are with the families of the students, the school authorities and the injured,” said President Buhari while pledging to continue to support the police and military struggle against terrorists and bandits.

The post Katsina school attack: Security agents locate bandits enclave, in gun battle appeared first on Frontpageng.

Finally, the chickens have come home to roost! The misdeeds of Nigeria’s leaders are coming back to haunt them. Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina State painted a vivid picture of this during the week when he spoke about the horrors locked in the Northern forest, where anyone could get hundreds of armed men almost for free.  He said that the children abandoned in the forest across the north were now coming back to fight the society as bandits. He didn’t stop there. He warned that unless the education of children in this region is addressed, the situation might become worse in future as the level of insecurity in the country today would be child’s play compared with what is likely to happen in another two decades from now. In the governor’s words: ‘’we have problems now with the forest people because they have no education of any kind. They do not have Islamic education and they do not have western education because they have been abandoned in the forest and forgotten. So these are the kind of children who have come up today, fighting us, fighting the society…. since the children are not educated, they only know one pleasure-the pleasure of the flesh, so they keep on producing children in large numbers.’’

In August last year, I wrote an article on Nigeria breeding children of anger every day. In that article, I emphasised that as long as the law of sowing and reaping subsisted, what we were currently witnessing in the country today in terms of security challenges would be child’s play when compared with what would happen in future if we continued to breed these children of anger. I also noted that the only escape route was for Nigerian leaders to sit up and invest in these children as being done in other progressive societies. This is still my stand today. We can talk about the problem from now till eternity, but nothing will change until we begin to take appropriate actions. Unfortunately, Nigeria is still reluctant to own its problems. It thinks solutions to them will one day drop from the sky.  One of its governors is even asking world bodies to come and resolve the country’s educational crisis.  I am referring to Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu, who recently asked the United Nations and the World Bank to give Nigeria bailout to solve its education problem. This was his response to the World Bank’s recommendation that developing countries should spend $700 per pupil, at least for the proper running of their primary schools. The governor, who thinks this is not achievable in a country like Nigeria, argues that  institutions like the World Bank and the UN were set up to share global prosperity and since Nigeria has paid its dues by contributing to global peace, it should  be helped to bridge the gap in its education sector.   Imagine that sense of entitlement!   Should a country rich enough to provide a presidential jet for its President’s daughter to go on a private photo shoot complain of being unable to budget ordinary N250, 000 on a child to run a proper primary school?

People like Bagudu have become so used to freebies that they have lost their sense of decorum. They don’t know that the fact that Nigerian leaders engage in certain abnormalities and get away with them does not mean that such behaviours are accepted as global best practices. That the Federal Government gives states bailout to pay their workers’ salaries  even when such states complaining of lack of money have more than enough to  spend on their former governors and their deputies, does not mean that reasonable international agencies will engage in such weird practice.

Of course, we know that Nigeria has become a burden to the world, especially in the area of child welfare.  These world bodies are the ones championing the fight against killer childhood diseases in the country. Nigeria has the likes of Belinda and Bill Gates to thank for its successful fight against polio, otherwise, many more children would have become crippled. In the area of education, particularly in the Northern part of Nigeria, the country owes lots of gratitude to organisations like the UNICEF for their efforts.  Some people probably do not know that UNICEF pays some parents in the North to send their children to schools. The Qatar Foundation through UNICEF pays mothers to send their children to school in Zamfara.  UK’s Department of International Development (DFID) is currently working towards improving enrolment in the north through its cash transfer programme. Outsiders are more concerned about our problems than we are about them.  Just recently, UNICEF promised to mop out over 500,000 out-of school children in four northern states namely Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states by 2020 in its Educate a Child (EAC) programme. It is currently paying to educate 31,000 pupils in Kebbi State alone where parents are getting N8, 000 on each child per term to encourage them to be in school.  These world bodies are making these investments, because they know that for the world to enjoy peace, the army of burgeoning out-of-school children in Nigeria must be well taken care of.  If not, these children will grow to become a terror to the whole world.  Meanwhile a state like Zamfara that cannot invest in its children’s education, can conveniently budget N7bn for construction of a new government house. Talk of misplaced priorities.  Many former governors in the north are still unashamedly feeding fat on their states in spite of these states’ claim of lacking fund to educate a child.

Perhaps, these governors should be reminded that part of the money being spent by UNICEF and the rest of the world in Nigeria are donations from many poor people abroad. These people pledge their dollars to eradicating certain diseases in Africa; they are not doing this because they are rich, rather they are doing it because they want to be part of reducing the world’s problems. Sadly, the only language some of our leaders understand is give me give me. They need to change this mindset. Leadership is about responsibility. One of the reasons why developed countries do proper census is to enhance planning, not for political manipulation. When state governments know the population of their states, it helps in planning towards effective distribution of resources. Our leaders should move pass the era of encouraging population explosion for electoral gain. The repercussion of such manipulation is too costly on the entire system.

Right now, the statistics on Nigerian children is discouraging. One out of every three Nigerians lives below the poverty line, this proportion surges to 75 per cent among children, according to UNICEF. Similarly, reports by Muffled Voices say 60 per cent of internally displaced persons in Africa are children. These children were forced to flee from their homes due to Boko Haram and herdsmen attacks.  Of   the over 1.78 million IDPs in Nigeria as of   February 2018, children and women constituted 79 per cent of the population, with 28 per cent of them under five, according to the World Food Programme.

All of this is happening in a nation so rich in human and natural resources. Nigeria has earned trillions of Naira from its oil deposit alone not to talk of earnings from its other rich natural resources. This country is not poor by any standard. The problem is the mismanagement of the nation’s resources by its half-baked leaders who lack the capacity to mobilise natural and human resources for maximum growth and development. Sweden spends $11, 400 per student from primary to tertiary education and devotes 7.3% of its GDP to education. This funding goes to both public and private educational institutions. No wonder the country enjoys 81.5% employment rate for all levels of education. In 2014, Finland spent $13,865 per student in its lower secondary schools. The country’s Ministry of Education allocates additional funds for immigrant students,  low-income students,  students in single parent families and  those who have unemployed or undereducated parents. In the same vein, South Africa spent R246 billion or 16.7 per cent of total government resources on basic education programmes in 2018/19. Overall, the country spends more than 20 per cent of its resources on basic and higher education and its combined education spending is more than 6 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  How much is Nigeria devoting to educating its children? It made so much noise about allocating 6.7% of 2020 budget to the ministry of education. The bulk of that allocation will go into taking care of overheads, payment of pensions, travels and execution of capital projects without any direct impact on students.

Smart countries are making deliberate and intentional investments into their educational sector. This is what the Bagudus and the Masaris in Nigeria should be doing-not just talking about the problem or looking for someone else to solve the nation’s problems. It is high time Nigerian leaders started seeing leadership positions as means of discharging responsibilities and not a way of milking the nation dry.  They are not being fed and kept by the state for nothing, they are in government to think and proffer solutions. Enough of this their peculiar mess!

*Olabisi Deji-Folutile is a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors: Email: bisideji@yahoo.co.uk

The post Masari and child bandits in Katsina forest appeared first on Frontpageng.

The state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Alhaji Ahmed El-Marzuq, announced this on Wednesday in Katsina.

“Section 5, sub section 2 of the 1999 Constitution as amended, conferred on the governor power to sign the order.

“The order is Motorcycle and Tricycle Restriction Movement 2020. Under the order, he has prohibited the movement of motorcycles statewide from the hours of 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., with effect from 20th January, 2020.

“This order shall apply to all and sundry in the state.

“However, there are exceptions. The order shall not apply to the members of the armed forces, the police, other paramilitary agencies like the FRSC, civil defence, immigration, customs and other security agents,” he said.

He said it was pertinent for all and sundry to obey the order, warning that violators would be jailed for up to one year with option of fine or both as prescribed by the penal code.

El-marzuq said that the measure was aimed at protecting the lives and property of people of the state.

“Most of the kidnappings and other criminal activities are perpetrated within these hours using this means of transportation.

“People are not restricted to move, they can use motor vehicles.

“By the time the situation normalises, the order will be reviewed,” he said.

Source: NAN

The post Insecurity: Katsina govt bans use of motorcycles appeared first on Frontpageng.

Masari made the disclosure in a communique read at the end of a one day security and reconciliation meeting with security agents, vigilance and volunteer groups, herdsmen and farmers on Thursday in Katsina.

“As from today, no vigilante group member or volunteers should attack or kill any herdsman, as sacrifice must be made by both sides to ensure peace reign.

“Herdsmen and their families should be allowed to go for their normal businesses, attend markets and worship places without molestation provided they don’t carry arms.

“Those bandits who rustled animals from communities should immediately return them to the government or Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association.

“Bandits should surrender their weapons and immediately release all those kidnapped and now under their custody.

“We are happy that we have seen some releases of kidnapped victims from Zamfara and other states,” he said.

The governor also said the states would intensify efforts to provide necessities that would make nomadic life meaningful like hospitals, schools, grazing reserves among others.

Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara said that the states would provide grazing reserve for the herders for them to settle in one place in the zone.

Matawalle said: “We are concerned that herders are always roaming around with their animals thereby exposing themselves to different kinds of hazards.

“The governors took a uniform measure, you should also take a uniform decision not to rustle animals, kidnap or kill anyone.

“You should immediately release all people in your custody in order to show the world that you have truly repented,” he said.

In his remarks, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, said that nobody was allowed to attack or kill anybody in the name of vigilance or volunteer group.

He also said that anybody caught killing innocent people would be pursued by the police and prosecuted.

Adamu said that any herdsman that indulged in kidnapping or other acts would equally be arrested by the police and made to face the full wrath of the law.

Secretaries to the State Governments attending the meeting would remain and continue discussion with security agents and herdsmen on modalities to go about measures to be adopted.

Source: NAN

The post Insecurity: North-West governors grant amnesty to cattle rustlers, others appeared first on Frontpageng.

The 80 years old Maistiyari, who was abducted at Sabon Gari area of the state, was released on Thursday after one week of abduction.

Her release was made known in a statement on Friday by the spokesman of the Kaduna Police Command, Gambo Isah.

He however did not state if any ransom was paid to effect her release.

“I am very happy to inform you that the mother in- law of His Excellency, Aminu Masari, has been released by her abductors yesterday 14/03/2019 by 16:00hrs,” Isah said.

“She is hale and hearty. She has already been reunited with her family after necessary medical check-ups, ” he said.

The police boss also announced the arrest of one Haruna Adamu.

Adamu is said to be a notorious kidnapper from  Zamfara State.

He said:  “The syndicate attacked the house of one Mustapha Sani ‘M’ of Bakon Zabo Village, Batsari; and attempted to kidnap his two wives but they were resisted.

“They were pursued and the said Haruna was arrested by a combined team of Police and vigilante members of the village.”

The post Governor Masari’s kidnapped mother-in-law regains freedom appeared first on Frontpageng.