Gun-wielding bandits on Friday attacked Government Secondary School, Unguwar Sarki, in Kaduna State and took away packaged question papers which were mistaken for a bag of money.
It was gathered that Senior Secondary School students of the school were about to write their National Examination Council (NECO) paper when the gunmen stormed the premises and ordered the NECO supervisor to surrender the examination papers.
The supervisor’s explanation that it was question papers meant for final year students who were writing NECO fell on deaf ears as the attackers grabbed the packaged papers.
“They snatched the wrapped examination papers and answer sheets and left,” Abdullah Mohammed, one of the students said.
The Principal of the school, Hajiya Bilkisu Aliyu, explained that the gunmen trailed the NECO supervisor from a commercial bank along Alkali Road where she had gone to collect the exam questions and answer sheets.
“Thinking it was money, they demanded she hands over the bulk of the wrapped papers to them and threatened to shoot her.
“They were told it was not money but they would not listen. They snatched the papers and disappeared into thin air,” she said.
Meanwhile, some of the parents were agitated as they called for government’s intervention.
One of them, Sanusi Umar, whose child was among those writing the senior exams, said, “What we heard initially was bandits had come to kidnap our students. So, hundreds of parents stormed the school.
“However, on getting to the school, we were told it was armed robbers that came to take away the wrapped examination papers thinking it was money.
“I want to call on the government and security agencies to beef up security in schools since these criminals are now targeting our schools.”
It was gathered that the school and NECO staff had to mobilise exam papers from other centres to enable the students to write the affected papers under strict security surveillance.
Gunmen had on Monday, July 7, stormed Bethel Baptist School and kidnapped 121 students. The Kaduna State Government in the penultimate week closed down some schools that are prone to security threats.
Kaduna is known as a nerve centre for security threats.
