NATIONAL: Shekau faults govt’s claim, releases video of abducted Kankara boys in his custody

THE dreaded terrorist group, Boko Haram, has released a new video to corroborate its claim that the abducted Kankara schoolboys are in its custody.

Shekau, the leader of the group, had on Tuesday released a 4 minutes’ recording to claim responsibility for the over 300 students of Government Science Secondary School, Kankara Katsina State abducted on Friday.

He said they were abducted to discourage them from having Western education.

Governor Bello Masari of Kaduna State, however, insisted that the schoolboys were kidnapped by “well known” bandits and they’re in the custody of the bandits and not Boko Haram.

Masari, who said the boys were somewhere in the Zamfara forest, and even added that his government was negotiating with the bandits; assuring parents of the kidnapped boys that the boys would soon be released.

In a similar vein, Coordinator of the Defence Headquarters, Major General John Enenche in TV interviews, debunked Shekau’s claim that the boys were in the clutches of Boko Haram.

Enenche said Shekau made the claim to boost his ego as is the way of terrorists and insurgents when they are being defeated.

He, too, assured Nigerians that the boys would be rescued.

But in the six minutes 30 seconds video, released by Shekau today, the abducted boys were seen looking hopeless and dejected.

The boys said some of them had been killed and pleaded with the government to respond to the demands of the terrorists, including paying ransom so they could be set free.

“Please, you have to dissolve any gang of vigilantes, close any kind of schools, excluding Islamiyyah [Qur’anic schools]. All the troops who have come here to help us, please send them back,” one of the abducted students pleaded in the released video.

The students of the all-boys boarding secondary school were abducted on Friday, December 11, after the terrorists stormed their school in the middle of the night, broke its gate, and gathered the boys after engaging the police officers guarding the school in a gun duel.

The boys were reportedly shepherded into the forest, afterwards.