Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa covering President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. government, UN, IMF, World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington and New York.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday confirmed reports that three university students kidnapped in northern Nigeria on Tuesday have been found dead.
The three students were abducted from Greenfield University in Kaduna state, northern Nigeria.
Gunmen stormed the private university in Kaduna state on Tuesday, killing a staff and abducting an unknown number of students. It was the fifth attack on a Nigerian school since December 2020.
The killings confirmed by Buhari on Saturday mark an escalation in the mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria carried out by bandits.
“President Muhammadu Buhari, on Saturday strongly condemned the killing of three of the students kidnapped at Greenfield University, Kaduna State,” the presidency said in a statement.
The President described the students as bright youngsters who were cut down by evil people in their prime.
“My thoughts are with their families in this time of grief. May their souls rest in peace,” said the President.
On the recurring incidents of kidnappings and killings in Kaduna State in particular, the President condemned them as “barbaric terror attacks,” and described as “unfortunate the tenor of some political and religious leaders that seem to further incite and stoke the pain and anguish of mourning families who are forced to confront these tragedies. Addressing this scourge, requires great show of empathy and coming together as a society to squarely confront these elements and the danger it poses to our democracy and peaceful life in the country.”
He gave strong assurances that those who think that profits can be made, either from money paid as ransom or in politics, “will suffer with equal measure of recompense under the full weight of the law for their wickedness and brutality.”
“Banditry, kidnapping and the politics of murders will be fought with all the resources available to our country,” declared the President.