On Saturday, gunmen abducted eight National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) prospective corp members off a road in Zamfara State, in the northwest of Nigeria.
The corps members were all going in an AKTC bus from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, to Sokoto State through Zamfara State route to fulfill the necessary national service when their bus came to a stop in Zamfara.
The incident was confirmed to our reporter by a source within the transport company on Monday morning.
The insider, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to comment on the situation, claimed that although there were 11 corps members, three managed to flee the attackers.
In addition to the eight corps members, the bus driver was also kidnapped, he claimed.
“The corps members were offloaded (from the bus) and taken into the bush,” he said. “The police have recovered the bus.”
“They left here (Uyo) on Friday, and slept over in Abuja. It was when they were proceeding to Sokoto that they were kidnapped,” he said.
He said that security organizations and government authorities had been notified of the occurrence.
One of the abducted corps members was identified as Emmanuel Esudue, a graduate of Akwa Ibom State University’s Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, by Facebook user Malachy Blessed at around 9:14 a.m. on Sunday.
He claimed that since Thursday, the corps member’s phone number has been inaccessible.
Betty Udofia has been named as a further victim.
Edidiong Richard, a Facebook user, claimed that the kidnappers had gotten in touch with Ms. Udofia’s parents and demanded an N4 million ransom.
When we reached Yazid Abubakar, the police spokesperson in Zamfara, on Monday morning, he promised to confirm the occurrence and get back to our reporter.
As its spokesperson, Eddy Megwa, did not answer calls placed to his phone number, this newspaper was unable to quickly contact the NYSC officials for their reply.