At least 18 students from Oyo State have reportedly been abducted by suspected bandits after their chartered bus was attacked while they were travelling from Sokoto State to their hometowns.
The students, said to be from Gamji College of Health Technology, Sokoto, were reportedly intercepted along the route to Oke-Ogun within the past 48 hours.
According to sources familiar with the incident, the attackers killed the driver before taking the students away. The abductors were reportedly heading towards the Mokwa axis with their victims.
An Oke-Ogun youth leader, who confirmed the incident, clarified that the students were not from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, as had initially been reported.
He said the students were travelling in a school-arranged chartered bus from Sokoto to Igboho in Oke-Ogun when the attack occurred.
“The driver was killed and all the students were kidnapped. They have reached the Mokwa side,” the source said.
He added that the driver was killed at the scene and that his remains had subsequently been buried.
The number of victims was put at 18 by other sources familiar with the development, although authorities had yet to issue an official statement confirming the figure at the time of reporting.
The incident has renewed concerns over the safety of students and other travellers using inter-state routes, particularly areas where kidnapping and banditry remain a major security concern.
The reported abduction comes only days after 20 prospective National Youth Service Corps members were reportedly kidnapped by gunmen in Imo State while travelling to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom.
The victims were said to have been travelling from Ibadan when two buses were attacked along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Umunoha, Mbaitoli Local Government Area.
Meanwhile, efforts to obtain a response from the Oyo State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Olayinka Ayanlade, were unsuccessful as of the time the report was filed.
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