GUSAU: Hundreds of girls who were kidnapped from a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria last week have been freed, the local governor said on Tuesday.

President Muhammadu Buhari expressed “overwhelming joy” at their release and called on the security forces to hunt down their abductors, after Nigeria reeled from its fourth mass abduction in less than three months.

“I am happy to announce that the girls are free,” Bello Matawalle, governor of Zamfara state, told AFP.

An AFP reporter saw hundreds of girls wearing hijabs gathered at government premises in Gusau, the state capital, where Matawalle hosted a reception for them.

Authorities initially said 317 girls were abducted when gunmen, known locally as bandits, raided the Government Girls Secondary School in remote Jangebe village on Friday.

But Matawalle said “the number of those who were kidnapped is 279 and no one was missing.” “All the 279 are present,” he said.

He said the girls were freed with the assistance of “repentant bandits.” They will be given medical care to ensure “they are well to be back to their school or to reunite with their families,” Matawalle said.

The governor urged parents not to let the incident discourage their children from going to school.

“I assure you that the government will provide all measures to prevent further occurrence of this incident, by the Grace of God.” One of the girls, Hafsat Umar Anka, recounted their ordeal.

“We trekked all the way,” she said, speaking in Hausa. “Some of us developed sore feet while others could not walk and had to be carried on the back by some of us.” “They threatened to kill anyone of us who refused to stay. We were very cautious. They fed us adequately.” She added: “We were put in a wide ditch littered with faeces and we were made to sleep there.”

Bandit curse

Heavily-armed criminal gangs in northwest and central Nigeria have stepped up attacks in recent years, kidnapping for ransom, raping and pillaging.

The Nigerian military deployed to the area in 2016 and a peace deal with bandits was signed in 2019, but attacks have continued.

In December, more than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in Kankara, in Buhari’s home state of Katsina, while he was visiting the region.

The boys were later released but the incident triggered outrage, reviving memories of the kidnappings of 276 schoolgirls by jihadists in the northeastern town of Chibok in 2014.

The gangs are largely driven by financial motives and have no known ideological leanings.

But there are concerns they are being infiltrated by militants.

The jihadists’ decade-old conflict in the country’s northeast has killed more than 30,000 people and spread into neighbouring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday the violence in Nigeria’s northwest had caused more than 7,000 to flee into neighbouring Niger this year.

Buhari said he was overjoyed that the schoolgirls had been freed without further incident.

“Being held in captivity is an agonizing experience not only for the victims, but also their families and all of us,” he said in a statement.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2021