Kidnappers ask for N270m ransom to release nine ABU students

Gunmen who kidnapped nine students of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, along the Kaduna-Abuja highway on Sunday, have demanded N30m on each of the students as their ransom.

The kidnappers have reportedly reached out to the families of the abducted students, asking for N30m ransom on each person.

A female relative of one of the kidnapped students told the Voice of America (VOA) Hausa Service monitored in Kaduna that the kidnappers had reached out to the family demanding N30m per student.

She pleaded with the kidnappers to have mercy and release the victims, saying they were only students.

One of the students, who was in the bus in which they were abducted but succeeded in escaping, Dickson Oko, also confirmed this to DailyTrust.

He said he was devastated by the thought of his colleagues in captivity.

Oko and the bus driver, Nuruddeen Mohammed, told Daily Trust that 12 of them were on the bus but nine students were kidnapped.

The students, who were on their way to the French Village in Lagos for their language immersion programme, were trapped at the Akilubu-Gidan Busa axis on the highway when gunmen blocked both lanes of the road and opened fire on motorists.

The university has confirmed that eight people were kidnapped. But Mohammed, the driver, said he had 12 students in the bus – 10 females and two males.

He succeeded in evading the kidnappers and returned to Kaduna with three students while the whereabouts of the remaining nine are unknown.

Mohammed said they were trapped sometime around 3pm at Busa, a few kilometres after Akilubu.

“Immediately they came on the road, the armed men opened fire. They shot two of the students in the bus, and we noticed that they had erected a roadblock behind us and another in front. There was another roadblock mounted on the other lane. So the only thing I could do was to stop,” he said.

He said with gunshots directed at their bus and other vehicles ahead of them, he suggested to the students to get ready to flee, adding, “I opened the door and crawled into the grass. The gunshots were everywhere; the person on the passenger’s seat in front also came down even though he was shot. I crossed onto the other lane. I never knew I would survive because there were gunshots directed at me.”

He said he saw the gunmen open fire at a Gulf car with people in it. He said the attack, which scared him, aided his decision to run.

“I can’t say how many people were killed but what scared me was how they opened fire at the Gulf car even though it had stopped and there were people in it. But the bandits opened fire and kept shooting. That was when I decided that it was better they killed me while on the run than face a gruesome fate in the vehicle,” he added.