Criminal leader behind abduction of school children in Nigeria surrenders
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Hours after the kidnapping, some students had managed to escape and later nearly 340 students were freed after days of negotiations
Hundreds of students were kidnapped from a northwest state of Nigeria in December 2020. The leader behind those kidnappings has now surrendered to the authorities.
Auwalun Daudawa, the leader of the criminal gang that carried out the torturous killings, surrendered to the local officials on Monday, along with six other members of his group.
"In a brief ceremony at the premises of the Governor's office.... Auwalun Daudawa handed over the weapons and also... swore with the Holy Quran not to revert to his old ways," government's spokesman Zailani Bappa told local reporters.
These abductions took place in December 2020 when President Muhammadu Buhari was visiting his home state of Katsina.
The criminals also surrendered 20 Kalashnikovs and other weapons on Monday.
Daudawa had led the mission in which hundreds of students were kidnapped from their school's hostels in a town of Kankara.
Hours after the kidnapping, some students had managed to escape and later nearly 340 students were freed after days of negotiations between the local authorities and the criminal gang.
This has come as a change in the usual violent environment of Nigeria in the past few months, where a few criminal gangs have been terrorising the area by looting, kidnapping and murdering the locals.
Daudawa's surrender has taken place as part o the amnesty offered to the bandits, the statement read.