At least 32 students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State, northeast Nigeria, have been killed.
The Nigerian Police Force has officially confirmed that the unknown gunmen that killed scores of students at Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State, called out the names of the student victims before killing them.
Police said the assailants shot and killed 19 students in an off-campus student housing area, and six other persons including a security guard, retired soldier and other persons who were not students. Fifteen students sustained serious injuries and are hospitalized, said Adamawa State Police Command, Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Mohammed Ibrahim in a phone interview.
A lecturer also told the BBC that at least 40 students were killed last night. While the AFP reported 26 dead, quoting a military official. “For now, we have 26 confirmed dead,” said the official of the shooting in the town of Mubi. “Fifteen are injured and are being taken to the hospital… The military has taken over control of the area,” added the official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to release casualty figures.
In all about 32 students are feared dead.
A spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency said initial reports indicated some of the victims were candidates in the polls.
“The crisis in Mubi is suspected to have been fueled by campus politics after an election at the Federal Polytechnic,” said the agency’s Yushau Shuaib.
Abdulkarim Bello of the Red Cross said “they were conducting elections in the Federal Polytechnic and unknown gunmen just entered and sprayed people with bullets”.
A student who refused to give his name, said that the gunmen were wearing solders’ uniforms, and were calling out the names of individual students before killing them, a claim that tallies with the police report.
The student said that after surrounding the compound around midnight, the gunmen started taking the students outside, asking their names and shooting them, while others butchered the bodies with sharp knives. The mutilated corpses were left lined up in the courtyard.
The student said the killings were likely to have a connection with last Sunday’s Student Union Government elections, which was heavily contested on regional ground between Northern and Southern students in the institution.
A resident told the BBC: “It is not clear why some were killed and others spared – some of the dead were Muslims and others Christian… Everybody is scared,” adding that the shooting lasted for about two hours.
Adamawa state, where Mubi is located, has been hit by violence blamed on Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, and Mubi itself was the site of a recent high-profile military raid targeting the insurgents. Boko Haram has not yet commented on the Mubi attacks.
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