The governor disclosed this on Monday, December 14, during an interview with Deutsche Welle, DW Radio. According to him, the majority of the students were in the Forest in Zamfara

He said “As at today information available to me shows that 17 of the missing children have been found. 15 of them were found around Dinya in Danmusa, I was informed by the DPO. One other was found through them and the last, the father called that his son has returned home. All these missing children who have been found have been reunited with their families since we have shut down the schools. I was told that they spoke with a teacher whose son was also kidnapped that the bandits said the helicopter should stop roving and that they will collect ransom but they didn’t specify. And so they ended the call. Majority of the missing children are in Forest in Zamfara. By God willing, the children will be returned safely. Efforts are ongoing to secure their release within two to three days. We solicit for prayers and urge the parents to remain calm and patience as we are doing everything possible to rescue the children”

The Governor of President Buhari’s home state who said this while presenting an N10 million economic empowerment cheque to 1,000 women and N7 million scholarship support cheque to 701 students in Rimi Local Government Area of the state, insisted that the Nigerian leader has done all it takes to ensure security in the region.

He said “We know them and their parents. To identify bandits in rural communities is not a difficult task, because you know his business, his farmland capacity, his livestock. And if one day he buys a new motorcycle amounting to over N200,000 naira, then you must know that he is selling people’s lives.”

The Returning Officer for the governorship election, Abdullahi Abdu Zuru, Vice Chancellor, Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto, said Mr Masari scored 1,178,864 votes to defeat PDP’s Yakubu Lado, who scored 488,621 votes in the election.

According to him, the total registered voters were 3.2 million, accredited voters were 1,173,780, while the votes cast were 1,720,638 and 37,593 votes were rejected.

The Returning Officer noted that “the APC candidate, Aminu Masari, having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored highest number of votes is hereby declared winner and returned elected.”

Governor Masari defeated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Mr. Lado and 16 other candidates in all the 34 Local Government Areas of the state.

However, the PDP rejected the results announced by the INEC.

The PDP state chairman, Salisu Majigiri, alleged that the results declared by the INEC did not correspond with the low turnout of voters experience during the election and with the results in custody of their agents.