December 15, 2020: Boko Haram also known as Islamic State in West Africa, has claimed responsibility for abducting more than 300 boys from a school in Nigeria’s northern Katsina State last week. The extremists group, Boko Haram, claimed the responsibility of abducting the students on December 15 via an audio message from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau delivered to The Daily Nigerian.
In an audio message, Shekau is reported to have said his group abducted the schoolboys because Western education is against the tenets of Islam. Boko Haram promotes a version of Islam which forbades Muslims to take part in any political or social activity associated with Western society. The activities like voting in elections, wearing trousers, and obtaining secular education are considered ‘haram’. Boko Haram in English translates as “Westernization is sacrilege” and interpreted as “Western education is a sin” or “Western education is forbidden.”
“President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday strongly condemned the bandits’ attack at the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara in Katsina State, charging the army and the police to go after the attackers to ensure that no student gets missing or harmed,” said Garba Shehu, spokesperson to the President Of Nigeria, on twitter.
More than 300 students are missing from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara after gunmen with assault rifles attacked their school last week. Few managed to escape.
“The kidnappers had made contact and discussions were already on, pertaining to the safety and return” of the children to their homes, said Shehu on Twitter during talks with Katsina governor Aminu Masari.
Mr Shehu informed via Twitter that security agencies had located the position of the children. On December 12, Nigeria’s police, air force and army launched a joint operation after locating their hideout in the Zango/Paula forest.
This is not the first attack on the school students of Nigeria by the extremist groups. In February 2014, 59 boys were killed during a Boko Haram attack on the Federal Government College Buni Yadi in Yobe State. In April 2014, Boko Haram had abducted more than 270 girls from the Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria.
After the incident, #BringBackOurBoys was trending on Twitter as people expressed their anguish. A similar hashtag #BringBackOurGirls had become trending when the Chibok girls were abducted in 2014. The hashtag had become a centre of international attention when Michelle Obama, former first lady of the United States tweeted about the Chibok girls.
Boko Haram is an Islamist extremist group in Nigeria which is formally known as Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād. The group was established in 2002 by Mohammad Yusuf and led by Abubakar Shekau. The group has reportedly aligned itself with Islamic State (ISIL) since 2015. In 2015, Global Terrorism Index had declared Boko Haram as the world’s deadliest terror group. According to the Council of Foreign Relations’ Global Conflict Tracker, the extremist group is responsible for more than 37,500 deaths since 2011 and has displaced an estimated 2.5 million people in Lake Chad Basin.
