Abducted students: 40 days after, DIG assures of boys’ safety

Chairman of Lagos Neighborhood Safety Agency (LNSA), Israel Ajao, a retired Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), at the weekend assured that kidnapped students of Lagos Model College, Igbonla are safe and would soon be reunited with their families.

Ajao, who is a also a member of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund, said security agencies in the state were working together to contain the menace of kidnapping and ritual killings.

Speaking with Crime Reporters in Lagos, the retired DIG noted that Governor Akinwunmi Ambode was working hard to ensure their abductors do not hurt the kidnapped students.According to him: “A lot is being done, which I may not be able to disclose to you for security reasons, but I am assuring you that the boys are safe and would be reunited with their parents soon.”

It is now 40-days after gunmen suspected to be militants kidnapped the six students of Lagos State Model College, Igbo Nla, Epe. The gunmen who stormed the school in the early hours of Thursday, May 25 were alleged to have collected the sum of N10m jointly contributed by parents of the boys with a promise to release them.

The parents who were anxiously awaiting the return of their sons got the shock of their lives when the kidnappers as soon they secured the money sent a text message to one of the parents threatening to kill the children if the balance was not paid as at last Thursday.

The militants had accepted the sum of N10m offered them by the parents with the promise to release them same day.It was gathered that the kidnappers who initially demanded for N400m ransom had reduced it to N50m.

They are currently expecting the parents to raise the sum of N40m before the students would be released to them.Meanwhile, The Guardian learnt the kidnappers who have moved the students to Efire creek at Lagos-Ogun boundary, have devised means to entertain the boys who are becoming ill and restless.The state police command spokesman, Olarinde Famous-Cole, said the command is hopeful that the students would soon be released.