Nearly 300 girls, who were kidnapped from a boarding school in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara last Friday, have been released by the gunmen, the governor said in a tweet on Tuesday.
An armed gang had abducted the girls from the Government Girls Science Secondary (GGSS) School in the town of Jangebe. A rescue operation had been underway to bring the girls back to safety.
A teacher at the GGSS who asked to remain anonymous, had said the attack happened around 1 a.m. (12 a.m. GMT) but did not provide details on the number of students present in the school at the time, Agence France-Presse (AFP) had reported.
Zamafara state spokesperson Sulaiman Tanau Anka told Reuters that some of the missing girls had run into the bush at the time of the assault, and the number of those kidnapped was 279, as opposed to the previously reported 317.
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said on Tuesday he felt "overwhelming joy" over the news that kidnappers had released the schoolgirls unharmed.
In a Tweet, Buhari said he was "pleased that their ordeal has come to a happy end without any incident."
Meanwhile, Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle echoed the president's joy. "Alhamdulillah! It gladdens my heart to announce the release of the abducted students of GGSS Jangebe from captivity", Matawalle said on Twitter.
"This follows the scaling of several hurdles laid against our efforts. I enjoin all well-meaning Nigerians to rejoice with us as our daughters are now safe," he said.
The governor's tweets did not state the number of girls that had been released. The messages included images of girls and small buses, reported Reuters.
Schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom in northern Nigeria by armed groups.
Such kidnappings in Nigeria were first carried out by terrorist group Boko Haram, and later its offshoot Islamic State West Africa Province, but the tactic has now been adopted by other criminal gangs.
The raid in Zamfara state was the second such kidnapping in little over a week in the northwest, a region increasingly targeted by criminal gangs. On Saturday, gunmen released 27 teenage boys who were kidnapped from their school on Feb. 17 in the north-central state of Niger.
Meanwhile, two weeks ago, 42 people were taken by a gang from a school in nearby Niger state.
In December, more than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in Kankara, President Muhammadu Buhari's home state of Katsina, while he was visiting the region.
The boys were later released but the incident triggered outrage and memories of the kidnappings of schoolgirls by terrorist groups in Dapchi and Chibok that shocked the world.
