Gunmen seize Plateau varsity student, shoot one in Bokkos off-campus attack
- A first-year female student of Plateau State University, Bokkos, was taken by gunmen on Saturday night.
- Another person was shot and injured in the same attack on off-campus student housing.
- The university says about 1,000 of its nearly 20,000 students can be housed on campus.
Gunmen believed to be kidnappers seized a first-year female student of Plateau State University (PLASU) in Bokkos and shot and injured another person on Saturday night, according to students and a university official.
The attack happened at about 8:40pm in an area where students rent rooms outside the campus, in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State. The student was out with another female student when the gunmen took her, a fellow student told journalists in Jos on Sunday.
"We have not seen her since then," the student said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He said she lived off campus and he did not know her personally. He called on security agencies to bring her back safely.
Second attack in four weeks
A member of the university community, who also asked not to be named because he is not authorised to speak publicly, said the school knows about the incident. He said it would be the second such attack on students living off campus in four weeks.
He stressed that the attack did not happen inside the campus, which he said the university is directly responsible for protecting. Even so, he said management is worried that students who rent outside the school should face such danger.
According to him, the university can currently house only about 1,000 students in its hostels because of serious funding limits, while it has close to 20,000 students in all. He said Vice-Chancellor Prof. Shedrack Best has worked hard to provide safe rooms on campus, and that the school is grateful to Governor Caleb Mutfwang and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) for building critical facilities.
The university, he said, will keep talking to the authorities about more hostel space and better security for its students.
The Plateau State Police Command spokesperson, DSP Alfred Alabo, could not be reached for comment when the reports were filed.
What happens next
Students and residents will be watching to see whether the police launch a rescue operation and confirm the details of the attack. The case also puts pressure on the university and the state government over hostel space, since students who cannot get a room on campus are left to find housing in communities around Bokkos.
