Some Nigerian varsity students at the Confluence University of Science and Technology, Osara, Okene in Kogi State have revealed that almost 50 students were missing after an invasion by terrorists on Thursday night.
According to the sources, almost all students reading in three classrooms in preparation for their forthcoming examination were missing after the attack.
“Kidnappers invaded the school to kidnap almost 50 students,” one of the students told SaharaReporters on Friday morning.
“Almost all the students reading in the classrooms are missing,” another source said.
Several attempts made by SaharaReporters to reach the spokesperson for the state police command, William Ovye Aya, on the phone failed.
He did not answer repeated calls and had yet to reply to text messages sent to him at the time of filing this report.
SaharaReporters had reported that some terrorists on Thursday night invaded the university.
It was gathered the students were preparing for their first-semester examination expected to commence on Monday, May 13, when the terrorists struck.
A source in the state told SaharaReporters that the bandits came in through the bush and started shooting indiscriminately.
An eyewitness told The PUNCH that the bandits came in through the bush around 9pm, went into three lecture halls and began to shoot into the air to scare the students.
“They trapped the students inside the halls and started taking them; the school was thrown into total confusion as fear-stricken students in other halls scurried to safety, scampering in various directions.
“By the time local security guards and the conventional security men at the gate engaged the bandits, they had already succeeded in abducting some students.
“But the efforts minimised the damage as the attackers didn’t go beyond the first three halls,”
the source said.
A student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that he and some colleagues ran to the bush and hid there for “more than an hour”.
“We only ventured out when everywhere became quiet,” he said.
A student, Alim S. Ubeida posted a video of one of a lecture room with slippers, notebooks and pens scattered about.
The student said, “This is one of the classrooms attacked by the kidnappers at CUSTECH Osara Kogi state. Some students are still missing while Hunters and the school security personnel are chasing the kidnappers. @HQNigerianArmy please help.”
CUSTEC Vice Chancellor, Prof. Abdulraman Asipita, confirmed the incident to The PUNCH but refused to give details of the number of students abducted.
“I don’t talk to journalists on incidents like this, but I want you to know that we are on top of the situation,” he said.
