The Katsina State Government has, again, insisted that it didn’t pay a dime as a ransom to secure the release of the schoolboys kidnapped by bandits who attacked the Government Science Secondary School in the Kankara area of the state.
The state government also kicked against reports making the rounds that it paid the sum of N344million (N1million per head) as ransom for the release of the schoolboys.
The Secretary to the Katsina State Government, Mustapha Inuwa, who stated this in an interview with newsmen, yesterday, instead kicked against the idea of payment of ransom, which he said, if encouraged, will fuel criminality instead of tackling the menace.
According to him, “We can understand it is a very delicate situation because you cannot tell somebody whose loved one is kidnapped not to pay the ransom because the major fear is they will be killed.
“It is a dicey situation but people have to make sacrifices. Other countries stopped kidnappings by refusing to pay the ransom but for anybody killed in the process, the government paid compensation.
“Because people now connived to kidnap their relations to collect the ransom and because it has become lucrative.
The government will need to do sensitize on the populace of the implication of paying the ransom. Once ransom will continue to be paid, these people will find it very difficult to stop their crime, because in a situation where you kidnap somebody and receive millions of naira, tell me what they will do to earn this money within a week or so?
“Take it from me that not a dime was given to those people (bandits) in order to release these boys,” Inuwa added.