Fear of bandits: El-Rufai ‘secretly withdraws son from public school’

Abubakar El-Rufai, the seven-year-old son of Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai has, according to Sahara Reporters, been absent from school for several weeks.

Abubakar was enrolled in 2019 at the Kaduna Capital School, an education facility that is open to the general public.

The boy’s absence from the school is now being linked to the rising abduction of schoolchildren in northern Nigeria.

“He does not come again. I have not seen him. I don’t know if he is still a pupil,” a pupil told Sahara Reporters which had sent a correspondent to the school on Monday.

“His class is in this two-storey building, which is for the primary school. But he has not come since we resumed,” another pupil noted.

“You know the security situation around public schools in the state; he may have been withdrawn by his parents to prevent any embarrassing situation of abductions or bandits’ attacks,” a teacher noted.

“His parents may have enrolled him in another school or who knows, he may still be back, perhaps after the schools are safer. The governor has a strong stance against bandits – he is not willing to be seen to be paying ransom. So he would have assessed the situation and concluded that he has to protect his son from any occurrence,” another teacher stated.

Coincidentally, El-Rufai’s wife, Hadiza, on Monday insinuated that her husband had told her that if she ever got kidnapped, he would not pay ransom to secure her release.