Bandits invaded the Federal College of Forestry and Agric Mechanization in Mando, Kaduna on Thursday night, and carted away nearly half of the female students, leaving the males untouched.
Unconfirmed figures from a source close to the school said the number of female students taken away by the attacker could be as high as 50.
The attack came barely ad day after the Nigerian government announced it would negotiate with the bandits.
This stance was disclosed on Thursday by Major General Babagana Monguno (Rtd), the National Security Adviser (NSA), who spoke with State House Correspondents at end of the weekly ministerial briefing at the State House in Abuja.
The eyewitness said the bandits arrived the school around 11 pm, and operated for about one hour, amid sporadic shooting, without any intervention from the security agencies.
The college is said to be close to the Nigerian Defense Academy, NDA, but security officers showed up while the bandits operated till about midnight.
It was after the attackers had taken away the girls that security agents came to the college and took the remaining students to the NDA for safety. Subsequently, movement was restricted within and outside the college.
Nigeria is currently witnessing its worst peace-time insecurity as bands of terrorists roam the forests, highways and even neighbourhoods, kidnapping farmers, travellers, school children, and residents.
Rather than negotiate with them, the government would rather deploy all necessary forces to eliminate criminals, rather than negotiate with them, Monguno said.
Monguno spoke a day after it was revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari had authorized the deployment of 6,000 troops to Zamfara State, which has become the hotbed of banditry in the northeast region of the country.
“The government is tackling the problem of insecurity. We have said many times that there are two phases in solving this problem –the soft approach: talking, negotiating, and so on and so forth,” he added.
