Forty days after they were abducted by some yet-to-be-arrested gunmen/kidnappers, the remaining 14 abducted students of Greenfield University, Kaduna, have been released.
According to reports, the students were released Saturday afternoon at a location along the Kaduna-Abuja highway, where the Chairman of the Parents Forum, Markus Zarmai, and others were expected to receive the victims.
The police and the Kaduna State Government were yet to confirm the students’ release. But there were reports that the traumatized parents of the abducted students paid unspecified ransoms and bought eight new motorcycles for the kidnappers before the blood-baying kidnappers set the victims free.
Hell came down on April 20, 2021, as the bandits stormed the Greenfield University and forcefully took the students away. And as if to warn that they were not joking, the sons of the gun murdered three of the students on April 23, and dumped their remains in Kwanan Bature village, near the university.
Three days later, the Kaduna Government announced that the kidnappers had killed two more students of the university.
The bloody scenario caused panic among Nigerians and prompted parents of the abducted students to appeal to the Federal Government and other sympathetic governments across the country as well as the general public to help them raise the N800 million ransom demanded by the murderous gang.
Both the Kaduna State Government and the Federal Government never buckled. They, in fact, warned against payment of ransom to bandits. But on May 5, 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari appealed for “the release of the students of the Greenfield University.”
A report by Channels Television said there was a mild drama at the location where the students were kept after their release as their parents attempted to prevent the police from escorting them.
The angry parents, the TV station further reported, resisted and blocked the bus conveying them, arguing that after paying over N180 million ransom and buying eight motorcycles for the bandits to secure the release of their children, they could do without police escort.