Authorities in Kogi State have confirmed the safe rescue of a school principal, a National Examinations Council official and two students who had been kidnapped by gunmen during ongoing examinations. The state government said all four were recovered unharmed after a coordinated security operation, bringing a tense episode to a relieved close.
The victims were seized when armed men invaded a Government Secondary School in the Dekina area of the state while candidates were sitting their NECO papers. The attack turned what should have been a routine examination day into a security emergency, as word spread that a principal, an examinations official and two of the students had been taken away.
According to the state government, the abduction prompted an immediate response. Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo directed the State Security Adviser to coordinate a joint rescue mission, drawing together the Nigerian Army, the police, the Department of State Services, the civil defence corps, local vigilante groups and hunters familiar with the terrain.
Officials said security operatives saturated the surrounding forest, tracked the movement of the kidnappers and moved to block their escape routes. By cutting off the paths the assailants would normally use to move their captives, the security teams steadily narrowed the space in which the kidnappers could operate.
Under the mounting pressure, the state said, the assailants abandoned the victims and fled. The principal, the examinations official and the two students were then recovered, all of them unharmed. The rescued persons are said to be safe and are currently with security agencies for debriefing and the necessary medical checks.
The state government said it had put security measures in place at examination centres to protect candidates, and that its arrangements had helped foil a separate attempt elsewhere. Officials indicated that the group taken in this case had been writing their examinations at a school set well away from the main town.
The incident underlines the security challenge that continues to hang over schools and examination centres in parts of the country, where the safety of pupils and staff can be threatened by armed groups. With the victims now free, the authorities have pledged to sustain the pressure on those behind such attacks and to keep exam centres protected.