Abducted UniAbuja lecturers, children regain freedom, as VC insists ‘no ransom was paid’

Abducted lecturers of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) have regained their freedom from captivity of the gunmen who had stormed the campus of the institution, Tuesday.

The lecturers were released along with some of their family members in the early hours of Friday, November 5.

Chairman Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Abuja Chapter, Comrade Kassim Umar confirmed the development in Abuja, Friday morning.

Umar did not, however, disclose if the University eventually paid the ransom which the gunmen had demanded as condition for freeing their captives.

Umar said the freed university lecturers were on their way home returning to their families in the University campus.

It would be recalled that gunmen, suspected to be bandits, in the early hours of Tuesday invaded the University of Abuja Staff Quarters and kidnapped four lecturers along with some of their children.

The bandits were said to have stormed the University Staff Quarters in Giri and held lecturers hostage.

Report says the gunmen earlier demanded N300 million to release the abducted lecturers.

The six released victims included two professors of the university.

Also confirming the release of the lecturers, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Federal Capital Territory Command, DSP Josephine Adeh, disclosed that some arrests were made.

Meanwhile, more information has emerged on the release of abducted staff of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja), Friday morning.

According to the university’s Head, Information and University Relations, Dr Habib Yakoob, in a statement, late Friday, the three senior staff of the school and children who were abducted by suspected bandits from the Giri Quarters of the University in the early hours of Tuesday 2nd November 2021 were rescued following the operations of the combined security forces including the police, Department of State Security (DSS), Military, and University of Abuja Safety Officers.

“Though the abductors earlier demanded payment of three hundred million (N300, 000,000) naira ransom, our staff were rescued without any payment at all.

“The University management expresses gratitude to God Almighty; the joint forces, including military, DSS, University of Abuja safety officers for the unconditional release of our staff.

“At the moment, the University community is in wild jubilation as staff and students are congratulating and hugging themselves for this good news.

“The management of the University is also grateful to all our staff, well-meaning Nigerians, who empathized with us in that moment of tribulation and trial. Without your relentless prayers and supports, we might still be in a terrible mood.

“The management restates its commitment to providing adequate security to the University community and will continue to work with security operatives to prevent a repeat of that ugly incident,” the statement read.

‘We didn’t pay ransom to abductors’ – VC

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja), Professor Abdulrasheed Na’allah, says the institution did not pay N300 million ransom to the abductors of the four lecturers and their two other family members who were rescued by security personnel on Friday morning.

“No no, no, no, we didn’t pay a kobo, not a cent, not a naira no never, we never paid anything, we rescued them, so many people were arrested, we got them, yes the police got them.

“The truth is that we are hosting the young people from all over Nigeria and just hearing the news that people could be kidnapped so easily and we cannot even go to bed, the fact that people did not know what was going to happen to the kidnapped colleagues if theywould be released without injury would anyone be killed, it was traumatic.”

Narrating the impact of the ordeal on the university, Prof Na’allah said it was a very difficult moment for the university community, as he stressed that it was a traumatic period and that the experience was difficult to explain.

“The impact was traumatic and difficult to explain, imagine the people you know, the people you worked with being kidnapped

“We were not scared, we cannot be cowards and we are not, the truth is that we are just beginning and we are not afraid of anybody, but we are mindful of every strategy we must take to improve on the security and we are taking them” Na’allah added.

The Vice-Chancellor, therefore, called on government at all levels to yield to the call by the Pro-Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors on the deployment of a special squad to university campuses to work hand in hand with campus security personnel.

“Government must yield the advice of the of Pro-chancellors, it has to be now, it should not be happening, the special squad of security should have been there especially in University of Abuja, we should be determined to give total and absolute security to our universities.”