By our reporter 16.4.2026
About 14 students going for their Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB have been kidnapped by gunmen in Benue State.
The candidates were taken after the commercial bus they were travelling from Makurdi to Otukpo was ambushed by the gunmen. The students were scheduled to sit for the examinations on Thursday.
Chairman of Otukpo Local Government Area, Maxwell Ogiri, who confirmed the incident to journalists in Makurdi, said the victims were heading to the town for their examinations when the attackers struck.
“The victims are young people coming to Otukpo to write JAMB. Security agents have been deployed, and efforts are ongoing to rescue them,” Ogiri said.
Meanwhile two million candidates are participating in the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), which commenced nationwide on Thursday.
According to the agency, a total of 2,243,816 candidates registered for this year’s exercise, representing a 10.5 per cent increase from the 2.03 million recorded in 2025.
