By Adesina Soyooye
Angry Parents of Greenfield University, Kaduna, made a startling revelation Saturday evening.
They told a shocked audience, gathered to rejoice with them, that they paid the Bandits who held their children captive for 39 days a whooping N180, and 10 motorcycles to secure their freedom. This, they said, was without any help from the Government – State or Federal.
They lamented: “The Government did nothing. They abandoned our children. They did not send even one Policeman after the bandits. We paid the sum of N180m, in addition to 10 motorcycles.”
The students and three staff members were abducted from their hostel on April 20.
The bandits set the sum of N800m and 10 motorcycles for their release.
To show their seriousness, they killed three of the students within three days of abducting them, and killed two more two days after.
When their demands were not forthcoming, they set a date for the killing of the remaining students and staff. But on the set date, they released one of the students whose parents, reportedly, paid N20m for his freedom.
Neither the FG nor the Kaduna State Government was prepared to pay a kobo, not even after the parents pleaded for help, disclosing that after paying the sum of N60m, the bandits were still demanding for another N100m and 10 motorcycles.
At that point, Islamic Scholar, Dr Abubakar Gumi, who usually has access to bandits, and became a self-appointed negotiator, intervened. Gumi asked the FG to ask the Central Bank of Nigeria to pay the sum to the bandits. But there was no response.
The bandits waxed bolder than before, and capped their brazeness with a BBC Hausa Service interview granted by their leader repeating, and insisting on the demands they made.
Nasir El-Rufai, the Governor, Kaduna State, responded by saying the Military would be sent for a rescue mission of the students. On its possible bloody end, he carelessly said some of the students would be lost, but some would be saved.
But on Saturday, May 29, the students and staff members were, finally, released. Reports say they were dropped along the Abuja-Kaduna road.
Speculations are that the parents must have contributed over N10m each, to make-up for the ransome money and the 10 motorcycles.
Greenfield University, privately owned, was licensed in January 2019. Its Proprietor is Simon Nwakacha, an Engineer who hails from Anambra State.
Abduction of persons has, since, become one of the most lucrative businesses in Nigeria, especially in the North where students are, usually, abducted from their schools in dozens, scores and hundreds. But this is the first time that abductors, in addition to the ransome money, asked for motorcycles – to boost their business.
