There is a demand. And this demand is only known to a privileged few. Will they act? Time will tell. Take the story from here: Terrorists who attacked the Abuja-Kaduna train, killing eight passengers on board and kidnapping unspecified number of others, have explained why they have turned hippies on the rail tracks.
They spoke in a video shortly before releasing the Managing Director of Bank of Agriculture (BOA) Alwan Ali-Hassan.
The terrorists, in the one minute, 21 seconds video, said they did not attack the Kaduna-bound train because of ransom but to press home a particular demand from the government.
They threatened to kill the rest of the passengers in their captivity if the government does not hasten up in meeting their demands.
The video, which has a burnt Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) in its background, appeared to have been shot at the scene of the reported attack on a military base in Birnin-Gwari where two APC were reportedly burnt after they killed some soldiers.
The BOA boss, who was flanked by four terrorists, two on each side, was allowed to speak in the video apparently recorded before his release on Wednesday.
Ali-Hassan said: “I want to confirm to you that I was pitied because of my status and age so they are allowing to go. But, I can confirm to you that I left a lot of people in the terrorists den who are in need of urgent rescue.
“I hope the government will meet with the leaders of this group and talk with them, so that the rest of the people can be rescued on time.”
One of the terrorists emphasised that the government knows what their demands are.
According to him: “This government should know what they are into. This is nothing to us, we just pitied him (BOA MD).
“The summary of what we are saying is that either you quickly look for us or we kill them because killing them is nothing to us.
“You should also know that it is not your money that we want. if it is because of money, we won’t do what we did.
“We don’t want your money and you know what we want. So, it is either you you hurry or we do what we want to do. This is our message.”
