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Security expert, Dr. Ona Ekhomu has called on the governor of Katsina State, Aminu Bello Masari, to personally lead the effort to rescue the remaining 333 students held captive by North-West terrorists.
He said that Masari, as the Chief Security Officer of Katsina State had a duty to lead the fresh pursuit as “every day that passes seals the fate of the Kankara boys”.
Ekhomu said that the attack was foreseeable and preventable. He said that the Katsina State Government and the school authorities were negligent by not conducting risk assessments that would have enabled them predict the school attack and mass kidnap event.
Said he: “School authorities stand as surrogates of parents to the students. The authorities have a duty to anticipate security threats and take steps to mitigate them so that students are not harmed by malevolent actors such as armed bandits”. He warned that more school attacks should be expected in the North-West states.
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Ekhomu, who is president of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operations of Nigeria (AISSON), said that the testimonies of students who escaped the mass kidnap indicate that the event was well-planned and well-resourced. He said that the logistics of moving over 330 captives indicated that the school was targeted. He said that the mass kidnap is “obviously an incident of ransom kidnap. However, unfortunately some school boys may be killed by the ruthless terrorists.”
Ekhomu advised Masari to adopt the Makama strategy to recover the boys. He said the governor should use the military, police, civil defence, private security, Yan Sakai, hunters and other security resources available and march into the bush in hot pursuit. “The governor must lead this effort personally as leaving it to the federal security agencies alone might not produce desired outcomes.”
He said that since kidnapping had become common currency in the Northwest, the security agents are no longer committed to “hot pursuit” or “fresh pursuit.”
