The 20 Kidnapped Nigerian Medical Students Languish in Captivity after a Week of Abduction
The nation is in turmoil. Earlier this month, concerned citizens went on a peaceful national wide protest to trigger the government to take drastic measures to the economic hardship of the country. However, that has not yielded any fruitful result, instead, it led to chaos, especially in the Northern states. We witnessed the police intimidating peaceful protesters. Shortly after that incident, there was the outbreak of the Mpox virus in Nigeria. This outbreak has not been completely curb, and now there’s the case of insecurity in the country.
On the 15th of August (last week Thursday), 20 medical students, 12 students from the University of Maiduguri and 8 students from the University of Jos, were abducted by alleged Fulani armed men, in Benue, on their way to the Federation of Catholic Medical and Dental Students’ (FECAMDS) annual convention. The abduction reportedly took place along the Otukpo/Otukpa/Enugu federal highway while they were travelling to Enugu State for the convention. Tomorrow makes it a week this incident occurred, yet, there has not been any positive update from the police about their whereabouts. Although, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, was reported to have deployed a tactical team to ensure that the abducted students be rescued. This team has been reported to have arrived in Benue State on Monday 19th August, and was deployed to Otukpo, where the students were abducted to search for them. They have assured the public that the students would be rescued, but beyond words of the mouth, the public needs results.
Moreover, the police were given an update from one of the abducted students. On Saturday, one of the abducted students, Kwaghaondo Kingsley, alerted the public on his X social media handle. His post revealed that they had been without food for two days, and called on the government and families of victims to intervene for their immediate release. He wrote:
“We were kidnapped on our way to Enugu for a convention. They are requesting 50m naira for the 20 of us medical students. Please help us; we haven’t eaten for two days. Contact Pius at 08163420157—he is coordinating the funds.They said they would start killing us tomorrow”. One could easily read the fear in this post.
In furtherance, The Nigerian students association (NAS) has given federal government at three day ultimatum for the release of the kidnapped colleagues the medical students otherwise there will be a nationwide protest by the students body. It should not always have to result into a protest before results are shown. An important question to ask is, where are the brave agile police men who threatened the lives of the protesters during the End Bad Governance protest? The police must shift their focus from intimidating peaceful protesters to tackling the real threats facing Nigerians.
To conclude, when the shepherd is asleep, the wolf attacks the flock. Our leaders needs to wake up and see the vulnerability of the state of security in the nation. Abduction and demanding outrageous ransoms from the victims, has become a source of livelihood for these criminals. It is time to put an end to this shenanigan. The nation awaits the safe return of the medical students, our future medical professionals. We can only pray the police rises to the challenge and bring them back in one piece. This is still a developing story, and updates will be provided as the events unfold.
Omohhh… things are just getting worse on a daily basis in the country. For the abducted students, I could have said that the life of individual that took to his X page is in more danger but seeing the phone number of one the kidnappers shows the involvement of the kidnappers in the post. Hopefully, the Nigerian Government will respond to them on time.
Good one