Abductors of 287 schoolchildren of LEA Primary School in Kuriga village in the Gidan Bakuso Local Government area of Kaduna State are demanding N1 billion as ransom.

Peoples Gazette reliably learnt of the development from a resident of the community.

A resident, Aminu Jibril told The Gazette that he was contacted around 12:16 p.m. on Tuesday by the bandits who “hid their number” and asked for N1 billion ransom to be paid within “20 days.”

According to Mr Jibril, the bandits threatened to “kill all the children, all 287 of them” if they failed to deliver the ransom within the given period.

Asked how they got his contact, Mr Jibril explained that the school principal, who was among the abducted persons and his childhood friend, gave the bandits his mobile details.

“He selected my number and gave them. This is how they got my number,” Mr Jibril said on Thursday, adding that he immediately notified the stakeholders in the community who met with the state Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Samuel Aruwan.

President Bola Tinubu had stated that neither he nor his administration would cower to bandits, adding that he would not pay a dime to free the abducted children who are under 15 years old.

Mr Jibril said the community members were too poor to raise the ransom and called on the government and international organisations intervene.

“How can we be able to? Where are we going to start? N1 billion o!” Mr Jubril said.

“Even though we sell ourselves and our property, everything we sell, I’m telling you that the community cannot even raise half a billion naira. We cannot see N500 million talk less of N1 billion. We call on government and international organisations to intervene,’’ Mr Jibril said.