Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Several 100 school boys kidnapped in northern Nigeria last Friday have arrived in their state capital after being freed from the neighboring state where it's thought they were held by gunmen in a forest.

  • The boys, all 344 of them according to the governor of Katsina, will be visited by doctors before being reunited with their families.

  • Boko Haram said they carried out these abductions, but Nigerian government officials are blaming criminal gangs, possibly with some connection to the Islamist militants.

  • Haruna Tang Gaza from our BBC houses service gave me this update earlier from the Nigerian capital Abuja.

  • Information reaching us from because in a city now is that these voice have returned to Government House Cassina where they are first brought by the military 100 over to the governor after they were taken to a particular location in that city whether they clean off themselves.

  • So they're now we're in new look, they're wearing new clothes and they're looking needs now.

  • I had the meeting would President Muhammadu Buhari first the moment Buhari, who is currently on a visit to Kaduna State, which is also his home state, is going to address the students on try to calm them down before they are reunited with their parents.

  • Yeah, on what is the government saying about who took the boys, whether this was ideologically motivated or a criminal attack?

  • Well, the prevailing opinion on the government on security expert here is that just kids were taken by the armed bandit who have been terrorizing communities in those areas.

  • Even though Boko Haram Militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

  • But nobody seemed to believe them.

  • Uh, if the governor of Zamfara state, where they were held on who mediated their release, insisted that these arm bandit were behind the abduction off these 344 school Children, Well, Boko Haram has become notorious over the last decade for school kidnappings.

  • The group's name loosely translates as Western education is forbidden, so let's take a look now at the wider picture.

  • In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their school in Chibok in Borno State, and around 100 of those girls are still missing.

  • That abduction and others up to now have taken place in northeastern Nigeria, where Boko Haram is based.

  • But despite its claim.

  • Now the Nigerian government says the Katsina abduction was carried out by local gangs perhaps connected to the Islamist group.

  • Armed attacks and kidnappings are rife in northwestern Nigeria and often blamed on bandits a loose term for the gangs operating in the area.

  • Amnesty International says more than 1100 people were killed by bandits in the first six months of this year, with the government failing to bring the Attackers to justice.

  • I've been talking to share who Sania, former senator for Kaduna state in Nigeria, Onda human rights campaigner who believes it was criminals rather than Boko Haram, acting as the main force behind this kidnapping.

  • He believes a ransom was paid to get the boys released.

  • In the last few years, the bandits have been kidnapping people and collecting ransom on it is technically impossible.

  • Toe have freed those boys without ran something played.

  • But it isn't maybe strategic that the government don't want toe encourage kidnapping on payment of ransom by publicly disclaiming that ransom was paid.

  • But it is very much impossible Toe have free these boys from the hands of these bandits without on exchange.

  • Andi, in your view, these aren't the tactics of Boko Haram, as's you aware.

  • But Boko Haram have the most active in the north eastern part of Nigeria on they populated by the cannery tribe on the bandits in the northwestern part of Nigeria are mostly the Fulani tribe.

  • So I even with the audio claim of Boko Haram, I never believe it is Boko Haram because it is logistically impossible for Boko Haram to operate in the northeast and northwest.

  • So the fact that they were released within 48 hours off their kidnapped shows that it was the bandits and suddenly if they were Boko Haram that kidnapped them, that could not have been the situation because, uh, the differences between the Boko Haram on the bandages that boko Haram have a leadership they have a structure on.

  • They have a religious theocratic and political agenda on the band is our only motivated by money ransom kidnapping on this displacement of people.

  • So it is the fact that the way I kidnapped by bandits on bond there must have been behind the scenes negotiations between the bandits and the government.

  • So the government has, in a way, a double challenge.

  • There are different motivations behind the kidnapping of Children.

  • What more do you think the government can do to keep Children safe?

  • Well, first of all, what they have done, for the meantime, is the best to close down the schools and then take active majors in terms of protecting students.

  • But unfortunately, the ideological focus off the Boko Haram toe that is their campaign against Western education may have been a success with.

  • Schools have been closed, but it is necessary for now.

  • After that, then efforts should be made to secure schools.

  • But for now it is unsafe to have boarding school, especially in flash points and areas where the bandits have been laying siege in about five states.

  • In the northwest, Cassina so kowtow Kaduna, some for a on parts of *** state, which is neighbor into the capital city.

  • So the government now need to protect the school's protect.

  • The students provide infrastructure for such protection before students should be allowed to return back to their schools.

Several 100 school boys kidnapped in northern Nigeria last Friday have arrived in their state capital after being freed from the neighboring state where it's thought they were held by gunmen in a forest.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it