The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says abduction of schoolchildren occurs in the United States and other developed nations of the world.
He stated this while explaining that the phenomenon was not peculiar to Nigeria, where 27 students were abducted from their school on Wednesday, February 17.
Mohammed also explained that the Federal Government would not pay ransom to secure the release of the abducted students and staff of the Government Science College, Kagara in Rafi local government area of Niger State.
The minister spoke Monday night on Channels Television‘s “News Night” programme.
“Even in the most developed countries of this world, school kidnapping takes place. Last year, in the US, we all witnessed three or four school kidnappings, and that is in probably one of the most developed countries in the world.
“The thing about terrorism is that the terrorists don’t live by your own rules and they are especially interested in soft targets. They know that what is going to get global attention is kidnapping school children.
“We must be careful; we can’t turn all our schools into barracks. What is important is intelligence gathering, surveillance rather than the physical presence of the soldiers or policemen.
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“We are dealing with people who don’t think like me and you, we are dealing with people who don’t have any rules of engagement, we are dealing with people whose motivation is completely different from mine and yours. And anywhere in the world, this is how terrorists operate but the most important thing is to learn from what is happening and adapt,” Lai Mohammed said.