FIJ
Tayo Uloma (not real name), a student of Federal University, Gusau (FUGUS), Zamfara State, had no reason to be awake at 3 am on September 22, 2023.
However, her sleep was interrupted in the wee hours of the stated date when a group of armed men invaded her hostel in the Sabon Gida area of Gusau.
Uloma told FIJ that the next few hours plunged her into a terrifying ordeal with the gunmen abducting her and several other students from the hostel.
During the abduction, the student would also witness a shootout between her captors and a group of soldiers who had come to rescue her and five other students that day.
ZAMFARA’S FEDERAL UNIVERSITY PLAGUED BY KIDNAPPINGS: A CRISIS IGNORED?
The abduction of dozens of students from FUGUS later made the headlines that same Friday.
Unfortunately, the attack marked yet another abduction incident involving students of the institution in 2023.
In April, two kidnapped female FUGUS students spent 12 days in captivity. Just like the Friday attack, the students were kidnapped on April 2 after armed men broke into their apartment at Sabon Gida community.
In May, armed men suspected to be kidnappers again invaded a students’ hostel in the same Sabon Gari area and kidnapped another set of students. This time, however, the police was able to rescue five students during the attack.
A similar occurrence played out in June, when another set of students were whisked away from their hostel. The abduction, which happened on June 16, got the students of the university enraged and they staged a protest within the institution’s premises the following day. Interestingly, the protest was not just about that particular abduction but about the incessant kidnap of students by gunmen.
During Friday’s attack, soldiers were able to rescue Uloma and five other lucky students. On Monday, men of the Joint Task Force of Operation Hadarin Daji also rescued another set of seven students. This means 13 students have been rescued so far. Regrettably, this also means close to a dozen students are still in captivity.
