Kaduna Train Attack: HURIWA gives FG 24 hours to rescue kidnapped girl

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), yesterday, gave the Federal Government a 24-hour ultimatum to secure the release of Azurfa Lois John, a 21-year-old Christian lady and one of the kidnapped victims of the March 28, 2022 terrorist attack on a Kaduna-Abuja train.

HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, noted that failure to secure the release of the lady, who has been in captivity for about five months now, will attract a severe legal tussle as the group won’t hesitate to sue the FG and report the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The group warned that the case of Lois must not become another Leah Sharibu, who has been in captivity since February 19, 2018, when Islamic State West Africa Province fighters attacked the Government Girls Science and Technical School in Dapchi, Yobe State.

At least 110 young and impressionable schoolgirls were abducted and whilst others were later released after payment of heavy ransom, Leah Sharibu was not released, but was reportedly married off to a fighter because she doggedly defended her Christian faith and refused to denounce same. ISWAP also threatened to keep Leah “slave for life”.

Recall that on Friday, Tukur Mamu, terrorist negotiator and so-called media consultant to controversial Islamic cleric and bandit-sympathiser, Ahmad Gumi, said a top bandit commander planned to marry Lois, who is said to be “the youngest victim of the train attack”.

Mamu also said the terrorists threatened to do to Lois the same thing they had done to Leah should her parents and the government fail to pay a N100 million ransom to secure her release like that of other hostages whose families and friends have been paying N100 million to get freed.