By Chinonye Anyatonwu
The Federal government on Wednesday said terrorists have freed 23 remaining captives of the Kaduna train attack.
This was disclosed by the Secretary of the Chief of Defence Staff Action Committee, Usman Yusuf. Yusuf said that the hostages were released at about 4pm on Wednesday.
He said that the committee took the custody of the victims who were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists during an attack on a moving passenger train in Kaduna on March 28, 2022.
The terrorists, who attacked the AK9 Train in Kaduna, had before now released hostages in piecemeal with the last release being on August 19, 2022.
The insurgents had blown up the rail track and bombed the moving train, killing some and abducting more than 60 passengers. The unprecedented attack had attracted international and national outrage.
Distraught family members had protested several times to demand the release of their loved ones.
Worried about the situation, the Nigeria Railway Corporation temporarily suspended activities, with President Muhammadu Buhari directing security agencies to rescue the victims after he met their families.
The Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Sambo, had said the Abuja-Kaduna rail line will not resume until all those kidnapped by bandits in March are rescued and reunited with their families.
A terrorist negotiator, Tukur Mamu, was on September 6, 2022 arrested in Cairo, Egypt while on his way to Saudi Arabia and returned to Nigeria the next day. The Department of State Services had alleged that Mamu, who negotiated between terrorists and families of kidnap victims, was part of an international terrorist network and used the cover of journalism to perpetrate his deeds.
Popular Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, to whom Mamu is an aide, had faulted the arrest of Mamu.
Gumi had asked the security agency to charge Mamu to court if it had any evidence against him, rather than keeping him in custody. But the DSS, in its reaction, said it would not be distracted by some skewed narratives in the media and requested to be left alone to concentrate on the ongoing investigations, the outcomes of which it said have remained ‘mindboggling’.
