A community in Zamfara State was in turmoil Thursday after suspected militants left a letter at a popular secondary school asking the principal to shut down the institution or be killed.

The letter, written in the Hausa Language, was pasted on the door to the principal’s office at Government Day Secondary School Jangebe at Talata Mafara Local Government Area.

It warned that the school should be closed on November 1 for two weeks, and that noncompliance would result in the school being burnt and the principal being killed.

Residents said the letter would have come from “bandits”, a loose tag used by the government to describe killers who have held sway in the state for years, killing hundreds.

The latest threat caused pandemonium as many students and teachers stayed away from the school on Friday.

Soldiers were deployed to the area late Thursday, and it helped to calm fears.

When contacted on Thursday night, the spokesperson for the Nigerian Army’s Operation Hadarin Daji, Oni Orisan, said he did not have the details of the incident but would check and revert. He did not immediately do so.

But PREMIUM TIMES saw a military memo confirming the incident.

The memo said the senders of the letter could also be kidnappers, also rampant in the area. It urged a “proactive” response.