Gunmen Abduct JAMB Candidates in Benue as Rescue Begins

Gunmen Abduct JAMB Candidates in Benue as Police Launch Rescue

Gunmen abducted JAMB candidates and other passengers in Benue as police and local operatives launched a rescue on the Makurdi-Otukpo road.

Atlantic Post

April 16, 2026

3–5 minutes

Atlantic Post, Benue Links, Benue State, Breaking News, JAMB, Kidnapping, Makurdi-Otukpo Road, UTME

Benue State has been jolted again by a brazen highway abduction, this time involving candidates of the ongoing Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board examination who were caught in a Benue Links bus attack on the Makurdi-Otukpo road on Wednesday night, 15 April 2026.

The victims were travelling towards Otukpo when armed men intercepted the vehicle and forced several occupants into the bush, leaving families, schools and the wider public once more confronting the violent fragility of travel in the state.

The incident landed just as the 2026 UTME was due to begin on Thursday, 16 April 2026, deepening the sense of timing and tragedy around the attack.

Accounts of the number abducted differ slightly, but the picture is grim. An anonymous source told PUNCH that the bus was carrying about 18 passengers and that two people, the driver and one passenger, escaped.

The Benue State Commissioner of Police, Ifeanyi Emenari, gave the more official police position that 14 passengers were abducted and one escaped.

That discrepancy is not unusual in the first hours of a kidnapping case, but it matters because it shows how fluid the situation remains and how difficult it can be to establish an immediate victim count in a fast-moving ambush.

Emenari said he was already in Otukpo directing the operation and that tactical teams and divisional police officers had been pushed into the bush in a bid to recover the hostages.

In the paper’s report, he was quoted as saying, “I am in Otukpo now”, “14 passengers were kidnapped”, and that the effort to recover them was under way.

Otukpo Local Government Chairman, Maxwell Ogiri, also confirmed the attack and said security operatives had been moved into the forest to help rescue the victims.

He described the abductees as mainly young boys and girls travelling to write JAMB, which underscores the cruelty of the target selection and the vulnerability of exam candidates moving across unsafe corridors.

One of the most troubling dimensions of the case is the police claim that the journey may have violated transport safety rules. Emenari said Benue Links has a policy against night travel, yet the driver allegedly picked up passengers after official hours.

That point is important because it shifts the story beyond a simple highway ambush and into a broader question of compliance, oversight and transport discipline.

Benue Links’ own public timetable shows Makurdi-Otukpo services listed for 06:00AM departures, not night runs, which lends weight to the police concern that this vehicle may have been operating outside the company’s usual travel window.

The timing is especially bitter because JAMB’s official bulletin shows that the 2026 UTME began on Thursday, 16 April 2026. That means the abducted passengers were on the road on the eve of a national examination that should have been about hope, not terror.

In practical terms, the attack may have disrupted not only the candidates’ immediate safety but also their chances of sitting the paper on schedule.

For families already stretched by fees, transport costs and exam pressure, the incident is a reminder that insecurity is now directly interfering with educational access in parts of Benue.

This is not an isolated episode. The Makurdi-Otukpo axis has been repeatedly hit by gunmen in recent months, and the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore.

In April 2025, PUNCH reported an ambush on a Benue Links bus in which the driver and a front-seat passenger were killed and passengers abducted.

In June 2025, Daily Trust reported another Benue Links kidnapping along the Eke axis, saying the attack marked the fourth incident within two months.

Taken together, these reports suggest a corridor under sustained criminal pressure, where commuters, students and transport operators are being forced to travel through fear rather than confidence.

The security challenge is therefore not merely one of response after the fact, but of deterrence before the next vehicle is stopped.

If the rescue operation now under way succeeds, it will still leave unresolved the deeper question of why a road linking major population centres continues to produce repeat abductions with such grim regularity.

The combination of evening movement, weak roadside surveillance and the apparent willingness of armed groups to target buses full of civilians has turned a basic intercity route into a recurring danger zone.

Until that structure is broken, the state will keep revisiting the same emergency under different headlines.

At the time of reporting, security operatives were said to be combing the forest around Otukpo, while police continued efforts to trace the abductors and secure the release of the passengers.

What remains clear is that Benue’s insecurity is now striking at the heart of everyday life, from transport to education, and the latest abduction has exposed just how exposed ordinary travellers remain on one of the state’s most troubled roads.