Federal Government has expressed its commitment to put all in place to save the remaining 16 students of Greenfield University, Kaduna, whose abductors recently threatened to kill for the delay in ransom payments
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave the assurance on Tuesday at a press briefing in Abuja.
He condemned the recommendations by the Peoples Democratic Party in resolving the growing insecurity in the country.
He said, “The Federal Government, in line with its constitutional responsibility of protecting all Nigerians, would not fold its arms and allow the bandits who kidnapped the students execute them.”
The bandits had on Monday threatened to kill the remaining ones still in captivity if their demand for ransom was not met.
In an interview with the Voice of America (VOA), Hausa service, one Sani Jalingo who claimed to be the leader of the abductors, warned that if the state government or parents of the students fail to pay a ransom of N100 million and provide them with 10 new Honda motorcycles by Tuesday (May 4), the remaining students would be killed.
The bandits, who abducted 22 students of the school on April 18, had since killed five of them.
‘’PDP conveniently forgot that as far as terrorism, a federal offence is concerned, this federal government has successfully prosecuted thousands of Boko Haram members in Kainji, as part of a continuing exercise. We are now seeking the cooperation of the judiciary to continue with the trial of arrested terrorists,” Mohammed said.
The minister explained that while PDP claimed to have ostensibly offered suggestions to the federal government on some topical issues, especially national security by dropping the toga of politics in the national interest, the party played cheap politics.
He said, ‘’The party (PDP) went ahead to make wild accusations against the president and his government. For example, the PDP said the government has refused to engage, and that we were running a government of exclusion.
‘’The opposition party then went ahead to reel out a number of suggestions as a way out of the current challenges facing the nation. Unfortunately, the recommendations by the PDP have exposed the opposition party’s gimmickry, and the fact that it was merely playing politics with serious national issues, especially security.
‘’Had it not been so, and had it done its homework properly, the PDP would have known that most of those same recommendations were already contained in the outcome of the federal government’s town hall meeting on national security, which was held in Kaduna on April 8, 2021.”