Back of UDUS Stadium Attack: Victims Share Painful Experience

Dauda Musbau reports,

On 23 December 2022 around 11: pm, Abdulwarith Oyekanmi, a 200-Level student of English Language at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS), was going back to his hostel at Oceanic Villa in Adarawa from Jubril Aminu when three giant men ambushed him and they ordered him to surrender his phone and money to them. They used machetes, knives, and canes to attack him at the back of the stadium.

"When I attempted to run, they chased me and they eventually caught me. They beat me black and blue and marched on me until they broke my left hand, leaving me in agony and pain. They also hit me with cutlasses on my hand and thigh before I managed to escape from them.

On the second day that I went to the clinic, I spent five thousand naira for treatment including the transport fare,” Abdulwarith bemoaned.

He said he had reported the case to security and they assured him that all the culprits will be apprehended. 

More victims of attack narrated ordeals

If anyone had told Muhammad Bashir, a 25-year-old 200-Level student of Law at UDUS that his usual route to his hostel in Adarawa village would become the dreaded place to take, he would have quarrelled with the person. 

On 19 December 2022 at 7:10 pm when Muhammad and his two friends were coming from the 4-6 lecture in the evening, the unknown hoodlums pounced on them to hijack their phones and other valuable things in their hands at the back of the school stadium. They were shocked and three of them started sweating profusely due to fear and intimidation from those thugs. 

To escape from those miscreants, one of his friends smashed the pure water he was drinking at them to create a distraction and they ran out of their sight. Only God saved us that day,” Bashir retorted.

“At that moment, I thought the only thing I was doing was reciting Quranic verses that came to mind because that would be the first day I would be experiencing being attacked,” Bashir expressed his shock to Pen Press.

Abubakar Abdulraheem, a student from the Accounting department also narrated his ordeal, stating that the school stadium is now becoming a terrifying place for the students who live behind the school stadium.

When asked why he failed to live in the school hostel, he said most of them applied for the hostel, but they were not given a bed space in the school hall of residence; the reason why they decided to stay at the back of the stadium that has become the cave of unknown thugs. 

UDUS Chief Security Officer reacts

While speaking with the UDUS Chief Security Officer, Colonel Abdullahi Gwandu, he said that they are aware of the incident and they are taking a countermeasure to secure the lives and properties of students on campus, adding that the securities are on the lookout to apprehend the perpetrators of the evil act.

He, however, urged the students to always walk in groups, especially at night and he prayed to the Almighty Allah to heal the injured victims.