The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, has said it was stunned by a statement credited to the Zamfara state Governor, Bello Mutawalle, that he knew those behind the kidnap of Jangebe schoolgirls.
Chief Audu Ogbe, National Chairman ACF, in a statement on Tuesday, said the governor was reported in the media to have told 17 Emirs who paid a sympathy visit to him on the kidnap of 317 schoolgirls from Government Girls Secondary School Jangebe in Talata Mafara, that he knew the identity of the kidnappers.
The Governor was quoted to have said if he revealed their identity, Nigerians would be shocked.
The ACF in the statement asked the governor “to reveal their identity and let Nigerians be shocked or even the heavens fall.”
“We also ask the security agencies to question the governor on the identifies of the criminals he is trying to hide. If he refuses to disclose their identities, he must be treated as an accomplice to the criminal act of kidnapping.”
According to the statement, “the ACF has been embarrassed by the spate of kidnappings especially of school children spreading like wildfire all over the north. People in positions of authority that will help us out of this mess like Governor Mutawalle must stop embarrassing the north and country with careless statements on a serious issue like the kidnappings of school children.”
“Zamfara State and the north are way behind the rest of the country in educational development. The serial kidnappings of school pupils in the north will only worsen a bad and unacceptable state of education in the North,” they said.
Vanguard
