NIGERIA’S defence minister prompted criticism yesterday for urging Nigerians not to "be cowards" and to stand up to armed bandits, while security forces embarked on a mission to rescue 42 people kidnapped from a boarding school this week. The comments by Bashir Salihi Magashi, a retired army major, came on Wednesday, hours after gunmen abducted dozens of people, including 27 students, from the Government Science secondary school in the Kagara district of north-central Niger state. The Nigeria Police Force, in a statement on Thursday, said a massive search and rescue mission was being carried out alongside the military in which…