225 arrested Jigawa indigenes return from Abia

From Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse

The second batch of the 111 arrested Jigawa indigenes, who were earlier arrested in Abia state, have been returned safely back to the state capital, Dutse.

The number, together with the earlier first batch of 114 which gave rise to 225, have been arrested and detained after they were arrested at Abia state for about two weeks.

The released victims came in separate batch of two teams comprising of about 23 buses were escorted by military personnel to the state on Thursday and Friday respectively.

The victims, mostly teenagers, were rounded up by security operatives and labeled as insurgents travelling to the eastern part of the country to unleash terror on the communities.

The Chief of Staff to the Jigawa state governor, Malam Aminu Ibrahim, who addressed the victims at the Yakubu Gowon NYSC permanent orientation camp, in Dutse, asked them to accept the incidence as an act of God and not to see it as a deliberate attempt to humiliate them by their captors.

He said the  state government would do everything possible within its capacity to protect its citizens anywhere and at any time of need.

Peoples Daily observed that some of the victims were in dire need of medical attention due to the untold hardship they were subjected during their two weeks’ detention in the hands of the security operatives.

One of the victims (name withheld), who spoke  annoyingly to journalists, said “for all the 12 days we spent in detention, we were never allowed to perform our obligational prayers, while we are given food once in a day”.

In his remarks, the speaker state Assembly Hon Adamu Ahmad Sarawa said the House had set up a committee which met with other stakeholders within and outside the state to ensure they were released.