This is coming merely 24 hours after police in Plateau State claimed to have rescued some students of the state-owned polytechnic located in Barkin Ladi community, who were abducted on Wednesday night by kidnappers.
Four yet-to-be-identified students of the Federal University, Lafia, Nasarawa State, North-central Nigeria, have been reportedly abducted in a community near the university.
This is coming merely 24 hours after police in Plateau State claimed to have rescued some students of the state-owned polytechnic located in Barkin Ladi community, who were abducted on Wednesday night by kidnappers.
Wednesday’s incident came on the same day when the chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Plateau State University chapter, Hassan Zitta, and a former gubernatorial aspirant in the state, Nicholas Nshe, were released by their abductors after spending 11 days in their custody.
Nasarawa incident
A report by Daily Trust newspaper quoted the public relations officer of the university, Abubakar Ibrahim, confirming the incident. He said the gunmen stormed the students’ community at about 11:30 p.m on Thursday and whisked away the students.
The report quoted Mr Ibrahim as saying that; reads; “The Vice-Chancellor of the University, Prof. Shehu Abdul Rahman, on behalf of the management of the institution, expressed his profound outrage at the unfortunate development and condemned it in strong terms, and demand for the immediate release of those kidnapped.”
The spokesperson said the vice-chancellor noted that the kidnapping of students constitutes one of the most serious threats to education in the state in particular and Nigeria as a whole.
He said apart from expressing “his deep sympathy” to the families of the abducted students, the vice-chancellor assured them and their colleagues that no stone would be left unturned to ensure their quick rescue.
“The vice-chancellor, who has since visited the area where the students were kidnapped, visited the Nasarawa Police command where he formally notified the commissioner of police about the abduction of the students,” the report added.
He said Mr Rahman urged the students to pay more attention to security-related matters and appealed to them to remain calm and go about their normal activities.
He hinted that further measures have been put in place to guarantee adequate safety of lives and property within and outside the institution.
From North-west to North-central
The last couple of months have seen attention shifted to North-western states of Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Sokoto states, which are becoming the hotbeds for violent attacks by those described as bandits.
Just on Thursday, the Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, said insecurity across the North-western states has grown to become an existential threat, following ceaseless attacks on individuals and public institutions by bandits, leading to the loss of many lives.
Many students have been abducted in these states, leading to an increasing number of out-of-school children in those states.
But with the recent abduction and attempted abduction of students in Plateau and now Nasarawa states, there are fears that the ugly development of mass abduction of students could be escalating in the North-central geopolitical zone of the country.
The zone includes Kwara, Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, the Federal Capital Territory, among others.
As of the time of filing this report, efforts to reach the Nasarawa State Police command yielded no positive result.