Barely two weeks after 287 school children were abducted by terrorists in Kuriga town in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, the state Governor, Uba Sani, has reassured the affected parents that the children will soon return home safely.
Governor Sani, who made the disclosure, yesterday, during an open remarks to commence a meeting with stakeholders, traditional rulers and chairmen of the seven local government areas that were attacked by terrorists, recently, said relevant security agencies as well as President Bola Tinubu were on top of the situation to ensure safe return of the abductees.
The affected local government areas include Kajuru, Birnin Gwari, Kachia, Kagarko, Igabi, Chikun and Giwa. The governor had, on Thursday, March 7, the day the school children were abducted in Kuriga, assured the parents that the abductees would return unhurt.
However, governor Sani charged traditional rulers to ensure they report strange movements and incidents of attack by terrorists without delay, to enable security operatives move in to save the situation whenever it happens.
“Like I said, we are making a lot of progress and we are also working to ensure that our children return home safely. Only yesterday, I had further interactive sessions with the communities that were affected, particularly Kuriga community. I have no doubt in my mind that the efforts we are making with relevant security agencies and Mr. President have been doing everything possible to ensure that our children return home safely. I can say it here that Mr. President is determined, I have had series of discussion with him, the NSA, and service chiefs. A lot of progress has been made so far. We will not disclose it here, but we are on top of the matter, and by the grace of God, our children will return home safely.
“We are here this afternoon to have a very important meeting, which should be more of interactive meeting between Kaduna State government and head of security agencies in Kaduna, as well as members of the state assembly from the seven local government areas that were affected by the unfortunate incident of insecurity in the last few weeks. With us here, also, is our highly respected traditional rulers from the seven local government areas.
“Some of the local government areas are also here with us. The essence of this meeting is to look at our efforts towards intelligence sharing and gathering because we believe that security issue is everyone’s concern, particularly those at the grassroots levels; and here we have traditional rulers who are representing our people at the grassroots level. We also have members of the state House of Assembly, who are elected from the affected seven local government areas as well as the chairmen of the local government.
“In the last six months in Kaduna, we have been having meetings deepening our citizens engagement in ensuring that we have enough and adequate synergy between the state government, local government, traditional institutions as well as security heads in Kaduna. The essence of our initiative is to ensure that we support security agencies in Kaduna with relevant intelligence towards addressing insecurity in our state. Unfortunately, we have some setbacks in the last few weeks. And that is the reason why we are gathered here today, to, again, look at other areas that we need to deepen our own engagement.
“Members of the state assembly, who have also tried as well as the local government chairmen and the traditional rulers, we believe you have to look at other areas where we need to cover, particularly, some incidents that happened few days ago in Kajuru local government. It was really shocking because within 48 hours, we had series of incidents. And, of course, from some of our investigations, we realised that we have people within the community, who should have alerted the security agencies immediately when the first incident happened and even before the second incident.
“And that is the reason why we gathered everyone here, today, to emphasise on the importance of trying to reach out to relevant security agencies and our traditional rulers who are here. We believe security is local and that is the reason why we believe traditional rulers have a very important role to play, particularly that they are the ones who monitor the community and, also, observe the movement of people that are strangers within the community because traditional rulers within the community should have enough knowledge of the community, and should be able to identify anything that is strange within the community. “And we believe that is one of the areas we have to discuss today. Like I said, it is going to be a closed door meeting because most of the strategies are not something to be discussed here openly. I have no doubt in my mind that at the end of the meeting, we will have enough information, we will have enough ideas, and we need to look at other areas we need to focus on. And most strategies are towards protecting our citizens collectively.
“We also emphasis of the need to work together. Like I said, security is not all about security agencies alone, it is about all of us. And I believe that as we work together, we need, also, to assist the security agencies in protecting our people. Having said that, I want to thank every one and each of you that accepted our invitation to be here. I have no doubt in my mind that we will continue to work together”, Governor Sani said.
