Kogi Security Forces Rescue Kidnapped NECO Students and Principal Hours After Governor Rejects ₦10 Million Ransom Demand

A tense school kidnapping crisis in Kogi State has ended in a triumphant victory for local law enforcement after security operatives successfully extracted four hostages from a remote forest, completely defying a ₦10 million ransom demand from their abductors.

The dramatic turn of events unfolded in the Dekina Local Government Area, where a gang of heavily armed gunmen had stormed a building in the Olowa community while candidates were actively sitting for the ongoing National Examination Council (NECO) papers. The invaders made off with four victims into the deep brush: two female students, their school principal, and a temporary NECO exam supervisor. Shortly after the initial panic, the criminal syndicate established contact with terrified relatives, placing a steep ₦10 million bounty for their safe return.

Rather than opening up an administrative checkbook, Kogi State Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo ordered an aggressive, zero-compromise response. Adhering strictly to the state’s standing security protocol, the governor firmly shut down any possibility of ransom payouts or backdoor negotiations. Instead, the Office of the State Security Adviser launched an immediate, multi-agency search-and-rescue offensive.

An elite strike force consisting of the 12 Brigade and 21 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, the Department of State Services (DSS), frontline anti-kidnapping police units, and brave local vigilante hunters effectively saturated the entire woodland ecosystem. Operatives blocked known escape lines and actively tracked the kidnappers’ electronic footprints. Faced with overwhelming numbers and heavy firepower, the criminals abandoned the four victims in the dense thickets and fled deeper into the border forests to escape containment.

“We have made our position on this matter abundantly clear: this administration will never negotiate with criminals or hand over state resources as ransom,” Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo declared emphatically while receiving the freed victims at the Government House in Lokoja. “They may try to step across our borders to commit atrocities, but our security formations will ensure they do not return to where they came from. I highly commend the gallantry of our combined forces and thank President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for providing the necessary institutional backings to crush these networks. We are reclaiming our communities inch by inch.”

While the safe extraction of the students and staff has brought intense relief to the local population, the security breakthrough has simultaneously unraveled a massive regulatory breach. Police investigators confirmed that the building where the students were attacked was actually an abandoned, closed-down facility at Government Secondary School, Olowa Agbajo, which had been previously shut down due to its dangerous, isolated location.

Preliminary checks indicate that the school principal, for reasons best known to him, deliberately bypassed safer, state-approved town centers to conduct the NECO examinations at the unauthorized, remote site. Expressing absolute fury over the unnecessary endangerment of innocent lives, Governor Ododo has ordered the Ministry of Education and the State Police Command to launch a comprehensive joint probe into the illegal operations of the “miracle center”. While frontline troops continue to hunt down the fleeing gang members in the outer hills, state authorities have warned that any school administrator caught exposing students to risk for private financial gain will face the full, unyielding weight of criminal prosecution.