Students of FULAFIA protest kidnap of 10 colleagues

Students of the Federal University of Lafia in Nasarawa State have protested the spate of kidnappings around the institution.

The action followed the latest kidnapping of about ten students on Wednesday.

Following the establishment of the Federal University of Lafia in Nasarawa State in 2012, villages around the school have continued to expand.

Gandu community is one of the students villages that has witnessed population growth because of its proximity to campuses.

However, since January 2023, cases of kidnapping, mostly students of the university and other criminal activities in the community have continued to rise.

Worried by this development, the students and some residents of Gandu and the surrounding communities of the Federal University of Lafia besieged the main gate of the university, which led to the blockade of the Lafia – Makurdi – Obi road.

The students carried placards displaying inscriptions, some of which include “Nasarawa State Government saves us from kidnappers,” “Our parents can no longer afford to pay ransom,” and “kidnapping is a threat to the education of the girl child.”

Frantic efforts were made by the security agencies, which resorted to the use of teargas to disperse the students from the road to make way for traffic flow.

The village head of Gandu Community, Mallam Hassan Kassimu, who joined the protesting students, called on the federal and Nasarawa state governments to take decisive action to prevent further insecurity.

Some of the students who said the protest was prompted by the recent kidnapping of a yet-to-be ascertained number of students at two different locations by gunmen stressed the need to put an end to the trend.

Reacting to the use of teargas, the Acting Commissioner of Police Nasarawa State Command, DCP Shettima Muhammed, stated that adequate security patrols had been intensified around the university community

“It is illegal to block the major highway, hindering innocent citizens from using the road. Motorists travelling through Lafia to Benue State and other parts of the country could not pass. We had to deploy personnel to disperse the students. It is their right to protest but not block the road,” he said.

Head of Information and Public Relations at the Federal University of Lafia, Mr Ibrahim Abubakar, called on the students to be calm, as, according to him, the school had strengthened collaboration with security agencies to secure the community.

Radio Nigeria reported on the kidnapping of six students from the Federal University of Lafia in October. The parents allegedly paid a ransom of N5 million to the kidnappers, who then released the students.

At the time of filing this report, calm had been restored to the university community but the kidnappers of the students had yet to make any contacts.

SOURCE :FRCN