By Ade Oyeyemi
About 18 students of Gamji College of Health Technology, Sokoto State, have reportedly been abducted while travelling to their hometowns in Oyo State, with the driver of the chartered bus killed by the assailants.
The incident was said to have occurred within the past 48 hours along the route to Oyo State, with the abducted students reportedly taken towards the Mokwa axis of Niger State.
A youth leader from Oke-Ogun, who confirmed the incident, clarified that the victims were students of Gamji College of Health Technology and not Usmanu Danfodiyo University students, as earlier reported.
He said the students were travelling in a bus chartered by their institution to convey them to Oke-Ogun, particularly Igboho, in Oyo State.
“Sadly, the unfortunate incident is being confirmed by me because I’m from Oke-Ogun too, and our people have confirmed that it truly happened in the past 48 hours.
“But it wasn’t a bus conveying UDUS students. It was a bus taking students from Gamji College of Health Technology, Sokoto, to Oke-Ogun, Igboho to be precise.
“The driver was killed and all the students were kidnapped. They have reached the Mokwa side,” the youth leader said.
He added that the driver was killed during the attack and that his remains were buried on Saturday.
Sources familiar with the incident also reportedly put the number of abducted students at about 18, saying the school had arranged the vehicle to transport the students to their respective homes in Oyo State.
The sources said the attackers seized the students after killing the driver and subsequently moved them away from the highway.
The reported movement of the victims towards the Mokwa area has heightened concerns among their relatives and residents, particularly because of previous security incidents along major roads in the axis.
The latest incident comes days after 19 National Youth Service Corps members were reportedly abducted in Imo State while travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
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The corps members were said to have been travelling in two buses when gunmen attacked them along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in the Umunoha area of Imo State.
The Managing Director of Uko Akwa Ibom Motors Nigeria Limited, Isiah Akpan, had said the abductors demanded N50m for each of the victims, putting the reported ransom demand at N950m.
