Security Alert! Boko Haram Planning To Kidnap Students, Expats For Ransom

The Nigerian government on Friday raised the alarm that Boko Haram terrorists operating in the northeast are planning to abduct school pupils, students or foreigners in a desperate effort to raise funds, through ransom, for food, medical and arms supply.

The terrorists had in April 2014 abducted over 200 school girls from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno state, and the girls are still in captivity.

Nigeria's Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement noted that the planned abduction is a new strategy adopted by terrorists to focus on soft targets, having been routed from their stronghold and their capacity to stage spectacular attacks substantially degraded.

According to the minister, the largely defeated terrorists have now concentrated their attacks on soft targets, like motor parks, schools and entertainment centres, sincethey have been decimated to a level that they are now incapable of staging spectacular attacks like they used to do.

''The kidnap of the Chibok girls in 2014, which attracted global attention to the terrorist group, is what they are trying to repeat, hoping it can find vulnerable targets, especially schools, or a group of foreigners outside the frontline states. The plan by Boko Haram is also part of an overall strategy by the terrorists to seek to negatively impact on the psyche of the gallant troops who have routed them (terrorists) from their stronghold and also give the impression that they have not been largely defeated by the December 2015 deadline given by this Administration to effectively degrade the insurgency in the North-east,"‎ he said.

Source: ThisDay Newspaper