By IndyPress News Desk

A University of Ibadan graduate and prospective corps member, alongside other prospective corps members, has reportedly been abducted while travelling from Oyo State to their NYSC orientation camps.

Information gathered by IndyPress identified the UI graduate as Akano Oluwasanjo Samuel, a graduate of the Department of Mathematics. The identities of the other affected prospective corps members are still being verified.

IndyPress also learnt that abductors reportedly demanded a ransom of ₦50 million for each victim.

According to the Imo State Police Command, the incident occurred at about 6:30 a.m. on October 1, 2026, along the Owerri-Onitsha Road, around Umunoha. Two buses conveying NYSC prospective corps members and other passengers from Ibadan to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, and Bende, Abia State, respectively, were attacked by suspected armed men.

Speaking in an interview with Saturday PUNCH on Friday, the Managing Director of Uko Akwa Ibom Motors Nigeria Limited, Isaiah Akpan, owner of the affected vehicles, gave an account of the incident.

According to Akpan, the prospective corps members were travelling to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

He said the two buses left the Bodija/Samonda Park in Ibadan on Wednesday but were delayed by traffic around Benin, Edo State, before eventually reaching Onitsha, Anambra State, late in the day.

Akpan said the buses could not continue the journey because of the condition of the road, forcing the drivers and passengers to spend the night in Oba.

According to him, the buses resumed their journey at about 5 a.m. on Thursday and had barely entered Imo State when gunmen emerged from the bush.

“They blocked the two vehicles and took 19 passengers, all corps members, into the bush,” he said.

Akpan said the drivers managed to escape and alerted security personnel at a nearby checkpoint, prompting the police and military to commence a search operation.

He added that the operation was initially delayed after some villagers allegedly prevented security personnel from removing the abandoned buses from the scene.

The two buses were subsequently left at the scene, with passengers’ belongings scattered inside the vehicles.

As of the time of publication, IndyPress can confirm that some of the affected victims are recent graduates of institutions in Oyo State, including the Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, in affiliation with the University of Ibadan; the University of Ibadan; Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo; Abiola Ajimobi Technical University, Ibadan; the Federal College of Agriculture, Ibadan; and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, among others.

Reacting to the incident, the President of the University of Ibadan Students’ Union (UISU) wrote on X:

“Kidnapping has now become a normal thing in the country. Corps members were kidnapped on their way to camp, yet everything in the country feels normal. Demanding N50 million in ransom, as though people with N50 million sitting somewhere would even attempt to travel by road!”

Efforts by IndyPress to obtain a comment from the University’s Public Relations Officer were unsuccessful as of the time of publication, as a message sent to the officer had yet to receive a response.