Kaduna based Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has reacted to the latest abduction in Zamfara State.
The cleric said abductors of the Zamfara schoolgirls were not the bandits he recently engaged with in Zamfara forests.
TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that the bandits stormed Government Secondary School Jangebe in Talata Mafara Local Government Area around 1 am Friday and abducted over 300 female students.
Zamfara Commissioner of Security and Home Affairs, Alhaji Abubakar Dauran, confirmed the abduction to News Agency of Nigeria but could not confirm the number of the students abducted as at press time.
However, Gumi, in a short telephone interview with The Nation, said the abduction was carried out by a splinter group of the Zamfara bandits.
The Islamic scholar, who appeared to have reached out to the bandit leaders he recently met, stated categorically “They are not the ones that abducted the girls. It is a splinter group.”
When asked whether he would be going to Zamfara to meet the bandits for talks and plea for release of the school girls, Sheikh Gumi simply said, “maybe”.
Meanwhile, the Zamfara State Police Command has confirmed the abduction. The command said that about three-hundred and seventeen (317) students were abducted from the Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe in Jangebe, Zamfara State.
The Zamfara State Police Commissioner, CP Abutu Yaro said a joint search and rescue operation is already underway with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the marauders.