ARMED men suspected to be kidnappers have abducted about 20 Medical and Dental students from two universities alongside a House Officer in Benue State.
Our correspondent gathered that the students were going for the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students (FECAMDS) annual convention in Enugu State when the incident happened on Thursday evening.
It was further gathered that the victims are students of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) and University of Jos (UNIJOS), who were travelling together, and were ambushed by the gunmen around 5:30pm in Otukpo local government area of Benue State enroute Enugu.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the Benue State Police Command, Sewuese Anene, the victims were en route to Enugu for a programme when they ran into the kidnappers around Otukpo.
The students were said to be travelling in a convoy of two buses and were coming from the northern part of the country when they ran into the ambush on Thursday evening at about 5:30 pm.
“Yes, it happened yesterday, Thursday evening around 5:30 pm. The Medical students were said to be travelling from Jos axis and were heading to Enugu in two buses, for a programme when they were kidnapped around the Otukpo area,” he said.
“Though I cannot tell which university they were from, they were medical students in transit. I am yet to receive full details of the incident but I can assure you that investigation into the matter has already commenced.”
In the past six years, the federal highway from Otukpo through Ugbokolo in the Okpokwu Local Government Area down to Odoba and Otukpa in Ogbadibu Local Government Area has become one of Nigeria’s dangerous roads to travel due to the notorious kidnap syndicate controlling the thick forests and vast ungoverned spaces.
About six weeks ago, the management team of the Benue State Polytechnic Ugbokolo, led by the Rector was kidnapped on that axis.
This was aside from several other victims including Catholic priests and many other kidnapping cases of motorists with little or no effort to tame the menace.
