Governor Ahmed Ododo made clear on Friday that rescuing the four people abducted from Government Secondary School, Olowa Agbajo, in Dekina Local Government Area was only part of the job. Speaking in Lokoja as he welcomed the freed victims, the governor announced that security agencies would keep pursuing the kidnapping gang until every member faced arrest and prosecution.
He expressed relief that all four victims survived their ordeal, crediting the joint operation involving the Police, the Nigerian Army and other agencies for bringing them home safely. But he was quick to frame the rescue as a starting point rather than a conclusion, insisting that those behind the attack still needed to answer for what he called a heinous crime.
Ododo used the moment to restate his administration’s firm stance against paying ransom, a position he has held throughout his tenure. He argued that giving in to kidnappers’ demands only encourages more of the same behavior, both from the gang responsible for this attack and from other criminal networks watching how the state responds. Kogi State, he said, would not negotiate with or reward criminality under any circumstances.
Questions have also swirled around why an abandoned school building was being used to host NECO examinations in the first place, and Ododo addressed that controversy directly. Rather than jumping to conclusions, he said the government would let police complete their investigation into how the facility ended up serving as an exam center before deciding what comes next.
Perhaps most striking was the governor’s acknowledgment that the attack may not have been purely external. He suggested that criminal operations like this one rarely succeed without some form of local support, whether through information, shelter or other assistance. Security agencies, he said, would work to identify anyone in the community who may have helped the kidnappers, warning that such individuals would face legal consequences just as the attackers would.
Ododo praised the coordinated response from the Kogi State Police Command, the Army, the DSS, the NSCDC, local vigilantes and hunters, noting that the operation succeeded without any loss of life. He pledged continued investment in security infrastructure and urged residents to stay alert and share credible information with authorities, framing community cooperation as essential to defeating kidnapping and other violent crime in the state.
The four victims were reunited with their families following the governor’s remarks.
