Gunmen Invade Another School in Kaduna, Abduct Principal

The principal of Government Technical Secondary School in Maraban Kajuru, Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State was abducted on Thursday when gunmen attacked the school.

The gunmen were said to have invaded the school in the early hours of yesterday and broke into the principal’s house.

This is coming a week after bandits raided Engravers College in Kakau Daji, in Chikun Local Government Area in the state and abducted six female students and two of the staff members who are still in captivity.

A resident the school area who witnessed the incident said the bandits arrived at the technical school at about 12:45a.m. and started shooting sporadically.

He said although no student was abducted, the bandits broke into the principal’s house and took him away.

The source said people living around the school area were terrified following the persistent shootings, adding that some of them ran into the bush for safety.

According to him, the operation lasted for over an hour, adding that by the time security agents arrived at the school, an hour later, the bandits had left with their victim.

He said: “I live close to the school. They came at about 12:45 a.m., and were shooting sporadically. We thought they had come to raid the entire community, as they were shooting at the principal's house persistently.

”The sounds of the gunshots woke everybody within the neighbourhood up.  We didn't sleep throughout the night.  “When I heard gunshots, I called one of my neighbours; we became very terrified and I decided to run away from my house by scaling the fence.

“After a while, one of the teachers in the school called me and told me what was going on.”

The source further stated that “the bandits had difficulty breaking the door of the principal's house because the door had very strong padlocks.

“Two years ago, they kidnapped the wife of the principal, so after that incident, the principal took steps to fortify the house by installing strong locks.

“The operation lasted for about an hour. The entire  community was helpless; we could not do anything because we don't have any weapon to confront them.

”No student was abducted because of the alarm raised by the community, as the people were shouting. They only abducted the principal and left. An hour after they left, the security personnel arrived at the scene.”

While lamenting the increasing rates of kidnappings, he appealed to the government to address the ugly trend.

”We are appealing to the government to do something about this ugly incident; otherwise they should allow everybody to have a gun so that we will defend ourselves from these criminals.

“Once the bandits know that we also have arms, they will not just come and abduct people,” he stated.

The spokesman of the Kaduna State Police Command, Mr.  Suleiman Abubakar, did not respond to calls and text messages sent to him on the incident.