by Christiana Gokyo, Jos
Seven (7) children, who were kidnapped from Bauchi to Kano by a kidnapping syndicate headquartered in the southeastern part of the country, have been recovered and received by the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Abdulkadir Muhammad.
While commending the Commissioner of Police in Kano State, Muhammad Gumel, for the rescue of the seven abducted kids from Bauchi State, the governor expressed joy that the kids had been recovered alive.
He was speaking on Wednesday when he received the seven kids, who were earlier reunited with their parents, by the Kano State Governor, Abba Yusuf, at the Government House, Bauchi.
The children were handed to the state governor by the Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Auwal Muhammad, in company of top security agencies in the state.
“Indeed, the Police Command, the Police Commissioner in Kano deserves special commendation. The governor was in company with his Deputy, Auwal Jatua, the First Lady, Aisha Bala Muhammad, and other key stakeholders, including government and security agents.
“This is what we know policing should be. The abduction was a sad incident,” the governor said, and assured that his administration would give the police and other related agencies the required tools to carry out their work.
He called on security agencies and other organizations saddled with issues of child rights in the state to see the development as a wakeup call and start working in earnest.
Governor Muhammad then challenged the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking of Persons (NAPTIP) to work hard to beam its searchlight on the state so as to avoid future occurrence.
According to him, “If this thing is not nipped in the bud, it is capable of bringing suspicions and mistrust between the different people in Nigeria.
“It is unacceptable for people to be stolen and be sold, and their genecology, their linguistics, their faith changed, just because of the money; and I hope these are the only victims. I hope many others have not been mutilated or killed,” he said.
He lamented that, “The act of trafficking is a mutilation of a person’s genealogy, somebody’s history. This is a serious crime that must not go unpunished.”
He assured that, he will make sure that the Ministry of Women Affairs and Child Development collated information about the children, in order to effectively monitor their growth and career progression.
“We must be able to establish that they are well taken care of. My wife and I will make sure that we visited the parents; they must take responsibility, and these children must be entitled to have a good life.
“If the parents cannot do it, they should confess it now so that we can take them to BASOVCA; we can keep them there, but you know that blood is thicker than water; they will not want them there,” he stated.
The governor called on religious leaders to, as a matter of urgency, use their religious centers to preach on the responsibilities of parents in the upbringing of their children, and thanked his Kano counterpart for reanimating the children with their parents and donating N500,000 to each of them.
Governor Muhammad on his own part also donated N1 million to each of the seven recovered children.
Speaking earlier, while briefing the governor and members of his cabinet, Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Auwal Muhammad, thanked the governor for showing great concern on the plight of the kids.
The police boss revealed that it was the governor that intimated him about a viral video of the children, and he swung into action by quickly contacting his Kano counterpart.
“I met him and had a brief about the excellent job they had done in Kano that led to the recovery of these abducted children,” he said.
The CP commended the quick response of the governor and his officials, especially the Chief of Staff in returning the children to Bauchi.
He revealed that the abduction of the children was carried out prior to the coming of the Senator Bala Abdulkadir Muhammad-led administration.
“The whole thing started around 2016 – or thereabout – although, there were two incidents in 2023,” he said.