The Principal of Government Technical Secondary School, Maraban Kajuru, Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State have been abducted following an attack on the school by gunmen.
The gunmen were said to have invaded the school in the early hours of Thursday and broke into the principal’s house.
This is coming a week after bandits raided Engravers College, Kakau Daji in Chikun Local Government Area, abducting six female students and two members of staff who are still in captivity.
A resident around the school, who witnessed the incident, said the bandits arrived the technical school at about 12:45am and were shooting sporadically.
He said although no student was abducted, the bandits broke into the principal’s house and took him away.
He said people living around the school were terrified following the persistent shooting, adding that some of them ran into the bush for their dear lives.
According to him, the operation lasted for over an hour, saying that by the time security agents arrived the school an hour later, the bandits had left.
“I live close to the school. They came at about 12:45am and were shooting sporadically. We thought they had come to raid the entire community. They were shooting at the principal’s house.
”The sound of gunshots woke everybody within the neighbourhood. We didn’t sleep throughout the night. When I heard gun shots, I called one of my neighbours.
“We became very terrified and I decided to run away from my house by scaling my fence.
”After a while, one of the teachers in the school called me and told me what was going on,” he said.
The resident said: “The bandits had difficulty breaking the door to the principal’s house because the door had very strong padlocks, so it took them some time to break it.
“Two years back, they kidnapped the wife of the principal. So after that incident, the principal took steps to fortify the house by installing strong padlock.
“The operation lasted for about an hour. The entire community was helpless, we could not do anything because we don’t have any weapon to confront them.
”No student was abducted because of the alarm raised by the community, people were shouting.
They only abducted the principal and left. An hour after they left, the security personnel arrived.”
While lamenting the increasing rate of kidnapping in the state, he called on the government to address the ugly trend.
”We are appealing to government to do something about these ugly incident otherwise they should allow everybody to carry gun so that we will defend ourselves from these criminals.
“Once the bandits know that we also have arms, they will not just come and be abducting people,” he said.
The spokesman of the Kaduna State Police Command, Mr. Suleiman Abubakar, did not respond to calls and text messages made to him.
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