Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai on Thursday said the state was prepared to have some students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State killed in an unsuccessful bombardment aimed at bandits.
Speaking in the wake of the students’ release, Mr El-Rufai said that before the bombardment could be done, the bandits hurriedly changed location which led to the students spending over a month in captivity.
“Two days after the abduction of the Afaka young people, I was assured by the air force and the army that they knew where the kidnappers were with the students and they had encircled (them),” he said during a webinar organised by the Africa Leadership Group.
“We were going to attack them. We would lose a few students but we would kill all the bandits and we would recover some of the students. That was our plan. That was the plan of the air force and the army… But they slipped through the cordon of the army. That is why they were not attacked,” he added at the event hosted by pastor of Trinity House Church, Ituah Ighodalo.
“We know it is risky, we know in the process we may lose some of the abductees but it is a price we have to pay. This is war, there will always be collateral damage in war and we will rather do that than pay money because paying money has not solved the problem anywhere in the world.”
The governor, however, claimed that insecurity in Kaduna was not as bad as Niger, Katsina and Zamfara but the media only focused on Kaduna because it fitted into their narrative of ethnic clashes.
