"Nearly two years, men including young boys haven't been sleeping in the night in Kuriga,"
On Thursday, terrorists abducted over 200 students from a school in Kuriga, a town in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, and marched them into the forest unchallenged. This event brought to the limelight and possibly a climax the tragic episodes of years-long reign of terror in the community.
At the time the bandits arrived, the community was still healing from the mindless killing of Idris Sufyan, the principal of Government Secondary School, Kuriga. The terrorists who shot him in January, in his house, also whisked away his wife and their baby; although the two were later rescued in a joint military operation on 3 February.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that worsening terror activities forced stakeholders to move the secondary school from its remote site about three years ago and merged it with the primary school situated in the heart of the town.
From classrooms to the forest
Numbering about 300, students from both the primary and secondary sections had just marched into their classrooms after their morning assembly at LEA Primary School, Kuriga 1, when the terrorists arrived on motorcycles and herded them, including the principal of the junior secondary school section, Abubakar Isah, into the bush, residents told PREMIUM TIMES.
Some of them luckily found ways to escape from the procession, but 287 were taken away by the terrorists.
Sani Abdullahi, a teacher in the school, was one of those who escaped the abduction. He estimated that 100 students were abducted from the primary school while 187 were abducted from the secondary school.
Mr Abdullahi spoke to journalists when the state governor, Uba Sani, visited the community.
He said the terrorists, after rounding them up, instructed that everyone march into the forest.
"So we obeyed them because there were many and the pupils who were about 700 were following us," Mr Abdullahi told journalists who were in the governor's delegation. "So when we entered the bush, I was lucky to escape alongside many other people."
Local vigilantes and personnel of the Kaduna State Vigilance Service (KADVS) responded to the incident, but their efforts were easily nullified by the well-armed terrorists, according to Mr Abdullahi who disclosed that one of the vigilantes lost his life in the process.
Thirteen-year-old Aminu Abdullahi narrated to Reuters how he and his mates escaped from the armed men clad in military uniform.
"They came on motorcycles carrying guns, with some of them wearing military uniforms standing and shouting 'All of you should stop' while shooting in the air," Aminu said, adding that he managed to outrun his pursuer and returned home.
Eight-year-old Ali was not lucky to escape. His father, Sani Muazu, narrated how the boy and others were marched into the forest, barefoot, hungry and dehydrated.
Mr Muazu said his son, however, managed to escape when the terrorists ordered them to pass the night in the forest.
Meanwhile, the governor has vowed to rescue all the victims, noting that a manhunt of the terrorists was ongoing
There have been reports, however, that the government has engaged a negotiator to interface with the terrorists, a claim the government later denied.
A day before the abduction
Residents of the town described the incursion as the most brazen one since the terrorists started inflicting terror on Kuriga in 2016.
"They had never attacked us in daytime," a member of the local vigilante group in the town told PREMIUM TIMES.
Another resident who joins the local vigilantes to protect the town explained why it had been recently difficult for terrorists to inflict terror on the town.
"For nearly two years, men including young boys haven't been sleeping in the night in Kuriga," he revealed asking not to be named for safety reasons. "We do patrols with our locally made guns and rechargeable torchlights till dawn.
"If we observe their (terrorists) movement, everyone picks his firearms and standstill to protect the town," he continued, noting the resistance helped them thwart many planned invasions.
A day before Thursday's abduction, the terrorists had "rounded up some of our people in the outskirts of the town and bullied them," he told PREMIUM TIMES.
"They later released them and told them they were not after the locals, but military personnel along Kuriga-Udawa axis."
He continued: "But we still came out in massive number that night until the next dawn when many of us returned home to take a nap.
"Unfortunately, they staged the attack while many of us were sleeping. Some of us picked our firearms but no one could shoot because of our children that were with them."
Kuriga: A troubled refugee town without military presence
Residents who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES blamed Thursday's abduction on two things -- shut down of telecommunication services and absence of military operatives.
In 2021, the Kaduna State Government shut mobile communication in some parts of the state as an effort to disconnect terrorists and their informants, and to also frustrate ransom payment. But that did not yield a result as violence continued unabated.
According to the residents, unavailability of mobile networks to send instant signals to military formations in Udawa, a garrison town 10 kilometers from Kuriga, contributed to Thursday's successful raid by the terrorists.
Although there is a heavy security presence in Udawa, terrorists still operate on the fringes of the town. Last Friday, they abducted four locals, including a bride-to-be in a remote area of Udawa.
"It took the soldiers two hours to arrive at the scene after the abduction," a resident of Kuriga who pleaded anonymity for fear of being targeted by security agents told PREMIUM TIMES. "Had they arrived on time, the terrorists would have fled, leaving the students behind. But they operated and left the community almost unchallenged."
Kuriga and some 30 neighbouring villages had witnessed violent attacks from terrorists infiltrating the axis from Zamfara and Niger states, Gwadabe Aminu, an indigene of the community who resides in Kaduna metropolis, told PREMIUM TIMES.
He explained that Kuriga hosts many displaced persons from Sarari, Manini, Rafin Mazuga, Janmaye and other mining communities where terrorists had wreaked havoc.
Apart from the wanton attacks on its surrounding villages, Kuriga has suffered a series of terror attacks and abductions since 2018 with at least three deaths and 29 abductions, according to data obtained from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
The town and the other remote communities (now ransacked) have paid more than N150 million as levies to the terrorists, a resident of Kuriga who does not want his identity revealed for security reasons told PREMIUM TIMES.
"In 2018, we had to sell our old transformer and water pumping machine [provided by government] to raise N15 million for the terrorists," he revealed, adding that farming activities have also been threatened after many farmers were forced to pay protection and access levies.
Kuriga borders the terror-ravaged Birnin Gwari highway. Although it hosts hundreds of refugees, Kuriga has no military formation, the resident lamented, revealing that a police post that could have scared the terrorist away was moved to Buruku, which is almost 20 kilometres from the town.
Governor Uba Sani, who stressed the need for state policing, disclosed that a police post and military base would be sited in Kuriga for efficient response to terror threats.
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However, the state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, could not immediately respond to our enquiry about why the police post earlier stationed in Kuriga was moved elsewhere.
Who is responsible for the abduction?
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but PREMIUM TIMES understands that some parts of Kaduna, especially Birnin Gwari and adjoining communities, are being controlled by Ansaru, a Boko Haram breakaway faction which owes allegiance to Al Qaeda transnational terror group.
Kuriga also shares boundaries with Kurebe and Allawa in Niger State where rival groups of Boko Haram and Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) hold sway in the ungoverned territory. It also shares boundaries with Zamfara and other banditry-ravaged northwestern states.
Boko Haram had set the mantra for school abduction in 2014 when it seized more than 200 girls from Chibok Secondary School. Four year later, they also kidnapped scores of girls, including Leah Sharibu, from Government Girls Science Technical College (GGSTC) in Dapchi, Yobe State
Subsequently, criminal bandits mastered the abduction game and have practiced in Katsina [Kankara boys], Niger State [Tegina students], Kaduna [College of Forestry and Nigerian Defence Academy] and Kebbi State [Birnin Yauri girls] among others.
Ansaru and ISWAP mainly target military formations, but locals who look up to them for protection sometimes endure their wrath. There has been no cases of school abduction attributed to both groups.
PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the latest abduction could not be immediately connected to the killing of a wanted bandit, Isyaku Boderi, who was killed three weeks ago by security forces.
Mr Boderi allegedly led the 11 March, 2021 abduction of 39 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, and the 24 August 2021 deadly attack on a campus of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), both in Afaka, Igabi LGA of Kaduna State.
He was killed with some of his lieutenants in the Bada/Riyawa general area of Chikun and Igabi local government areas.
