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President Bola Tinubu has directed Bello Matawalle, minister of state for defence, to relocate to Kebbi over the abduction of schoolgirls in the state.
Twenty-five students were abducted on Monday morning when bandits attacked the school, killing Hassan Yakubu Makuku, a staff member of the school, and injuring a security guard.
Two of the abducted girls reportedly escaped the kidnappers on Tuesday, while attempts to rescue the remaining abductees continue.
In a statement on Thursday, Tinubu ordered Matawalle to move to the state “to monitor security efforts to secure the release of the abducted students”.
The statement added that Matawalle has “some experience in dealing with banditry and mass kidnapping” while he was governor of Zamfara.
The minister is expected to arrive in Kebbi on Friday.
On Wednesday, Tinubu postponed his planned trips to South Africa and Angola over the Kebbi school abduction and another bandit attack on a church in the Eruku community of Kwara state.
The Kwara church attack happened just 48 hours after the incident in Kebbi.
The assailants stormed the CAC branch at Oke Isegun in Eruku, a boundary town with Kogi in the Ekiti LGA of Kwara, and ransacked the building, taking the worshippers’ belongings.
The Kwara police command said three persons, including a vigilante, were injured but did not confirm the number of those abducted or killed.
Pascal Arogorn Ibe
