It was mayhem at the Government Secondary School (GSS) Ungwar Sarki Kaduna on Saturday, July 24, 2021 when masked gunmen stormed the school when the students were sitting for the National Examination Council (NECO) in two unmasked vehicles.
The students and supervisors, thinking they were kidnappers, fled the exam hall and in fact the entire school premises, causing mayhem, panic and pandemonium in the school and its surroundings. The school in local parlance is called “Black and White”.
It was gathered that the students were taking their NECO final year examinations when the incident occurred and that passers-by and motorists, out of confusion, took other routes to escape the gunmen as many were screaming kidnappers in high pitch voices.
The Principal of the school, Hajiya Bilkisu Aliyu, who spoke later, said the hoodlums had trailed the NECO Supervisor in her car from a Commercial Bank along Alkali road, close to the Murtala Mohammed Square where she had gone to fetch the examination question papers and answer sheets to deliver to the school premises.
Apparently, the gunmen had thought that the papers were huge sums of money, and swiftly stormed the school immediately she arrived the school premises and demanded the package to be handed over to them.
A source stated that they threatened to shoot her if she failed to handover the bulk of the wrapped content to them.
Trembling and shouting “it is not money!, it is money!!”, she threw package to them as they collected it and disappeared into thin air as the students, teachers made their escape to different directions.
Nonetheless, parents, on hearing the ugly incident, trooped into the school to enquire about the whereabouts of their children and wards. It was gathered that the Principal had an herculean task controlling crowd and explaining to them the real situation.
The NECO staff however quickly mopped up papers from their office and other examination centers to ensure the examination went unhindered.
Meanwhile, before today’s incident, the school, it was gathered, received a threat letter from kidnappers which led to its closure for sometime before it was reopened for academic activities just recently.
Uche Nwosu is a two time Shell Petroleum PLC award winner in the year 2000;
He won the Shell Award on Investigative Journalism and Environmental Cleanliness.
