Shock, Anger Trail Boko Haram Massacre Of 49 Students

President Goodluck Jonathan has condemned the killing of scores of students by suspected terrorists at a college in Yobe State in the early hours  of yesterday.
The condemnation was contained in a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by Dr. Reuben Abati, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.
Abati said that the President received with immense sadness and anguish the news of the murder of the students.
He wrote in the statement, which has become the hallmark of the Presidency after such attacks: “On behalf of himself and the Federal Government, President Jonathan extends heartfelt condolences to the parents and relatives of the murdered students.
“The President wholly condemns the heinous killing of the guiltless students.
“He assures the nation that his administration will not relent in its ongoing efforts to end the scourge of terrorism in parts of the country, which has sadly claimed more innocent lives today.”
Abati said Jonathan vowed that the Armed Forces and other security agencies would continue to prosecute the war against terror with full vigour, diligence and determination.
Similarly, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar yesterday broke down in tears when informed of the killings of dozens of pupils of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Gujiba Local Government Area of Yobe State.
This is coming as news filtered in that the death toll from the massacre of the students had risen to 49.
Suspected members of the dreaded sect, Boko Haram, attacked the school in the wee hours of yesterday.
Abubakar, who is also Grand Patron of Federal Government College, Okigwe Old Students Association, said in a strongly-worded statement by his media office in Abuja that all the Federal Government had been doing about addressing the security situation in the North East region of the country amounts to mere chasing of shadows if school walls cannot be protected from armed attacks.
The former vice president particularly frowned at the impression given by President Goodluck Jonathan at his Presidential Media Chat on Monday that the government has been successful at pushing armed attacks to the fringes of the country.
He said: “My heartfelt condolences go to families of the slain school pupils. It is unfortunate that innocent school children, will become victims of armed attacks.
“This will not be the first time in recent times that school children are being attacked, and it is particularly disheartening that the Federal Government is yet to devise a strategy of keeping our schools safe from terror attacks.
If our counter-insurgency strategies are not strong enough to keep our children safe inside their schools, then one must wonder if such a strategy isn’t mere chasing shadows.
“It is important that the Federal Government ups its counter-insurgency strategy and desist from taking credits in pushing armed attacks to the fringes, as the president would like to put it. No Nigerian’s life is less in value to another.”
Abubakar said it is imperative for government to ensure security in schools, in particular the Federal Government Colleges because of their unique role in forging national unity among pupils from diverse backgrounds in the country.
It would be recalled that suspected Boko Haram Islamists had yesterday killed 49 people when they attacked secondary school students as they slept in the latest school massacre to hit Nigeria’s troubled northeast.
The raid occurred at about 2.00 am and targeted the Federal Government College in Buni Yadi in Yobe State and bore the hallmarks of a similar attack last September in which 40 died.
The attackers reportedly hurled explosives into student residential buildings, sprayed gunfire into rooms and hacked a number students to death.
A senior medical source at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Yobe’s capital, Damaturu, said the gunmen only targeted male students and that female students were “spared”.
The state’s Commissioner of Police, Sanusi Rufai, who confirmed the attack and had given an earlier death toll of 29, hurried to Buni Yadi, roughly 60 kilometres (40 miles) from Damaturu, with Governor Ibrahim Geidam to assess the damage.
Damaturu resident Babagoni Musa told newsmen that four ambulances carrying dead bodies drove past his shop, which falls on the road from Buni Yadi.
People whose relatives were studying at the college had surrounded the morgue and were desperately seeking information about those killed, forcing the military to take control of the building to restore calm, the hospital source said.
The gunmen also set ablaze many structures in the school, the council’s secretariat complex, High Court among other government and private establishments including telecommunication masts.

L-R: British Minister for Africa, Mr Mark Simmonds, Governor Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers State and British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Peter Carter, during a courstey visit by the minister in Port Harcourt, yesterday