School abduction: NANS asks FG to declare bandits terrorist group

From Priscilla, Ediare Ado-Ekiti

The National Association of Nigerian Students(NANS) has urged  President Muhammadu Buhari to declare bandits kidnapping students in the northern part of the country as terrorists.

NANS said anyone with the propensity to kidnap and kill students in large numbers, as currently  witnessed in some northern states,  should be considered a terrorist by any sovereign country.

The students body said it has resolved its factional crisis, which sprang up recently with the emergence of  Abdumajid Oyeniyi splinter group, that  was challenging the leadership of the  National President, Sunday Asefon.

With this development, Oyeniyi said he has reunited with the main body and affirmed his loyalty to Asefon-led national union.

Speaking with journalists in Ado Ekiti, yesterday, Asefon, rued the lingering closure of schools in some parts of the north, especially in Kaduna State, due to increasing wave of students’ abduction.

Asefon said NANS’ had met with frontline Islamic Cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Gumi on the spate of kidnappings and killings of innocent students, saying the Islamic scholar had been handed the mandate to appeal to bandits when opportunity avails to stay off public schools populated by children of the poor.

He said he had met with different stakeholders in northern states to plead that they provide security for school children.

“The government should beef up security in schools. It is our belief that students should be going to schools with the assurance that they will be secured. I have called on the Federal Government to declare bandits abducting students in the North West and North Central as terrorists, but the reverse has been the case. Though, the security formations are trying their best, but their best has failed us. They need to be more proactive. We want our youths to have access to education. Most of the schools are under lock and key as we speak. What is the future of this country?

“We met with Sheikh Ahmed Gumi to help us appeal to them to stay away from public schools that are populated by the children of the poor. They should just leave our students alone and let them pursue their future.”