There’s palpable cloud of fear hanging over the Rivers State University (RSU) Emuoha campus today, after a brazen night-time attack by unidentified gunmen left five students kidnapped and a community reeling in accusation.
The assault, which occurred in an off-campus residential compound, in Rumuohia community saw armed men rob students at gunpoint, shoot a pet dog, and abduct five individuals. One student managed a harrowing escape, fleeing through the compound as a assailant gave chase.
“This is our reality. They robbed me. As I ran… they kidnapped my neighbors. They are nowhere to be found,” the escapee told our reporter, their voice trembling with trauma. “I was running. There was one running after me… I don’t know.”
Tragically, this nightmare comes barely five days after students held a peaceful protest decrying the rampant insecurity, robbery, and sexual harassment they have faced in the host community. Their pleas for protection, it seems, went unheeded.
Now, compounding the students’ terror is a wave of blame from some Rumuohia community members. Instead of solidarity, a vicious narrative is being spun, accusing the students of being “cultists” who brought the violence upon themselves.
“The community people have now started to shift blame… saying that it’s well-deserved,” one of the student said, anger cutting through their fear. “Emuoha campus does not have any cult group… They are shifting the blame on us because they don’t want to take it.”
This accusation is a bitter pill for students who say they are the victims. They point to the Rumuohia community’s own acknowledged history of tribal conflicts as the source of the violence now spilling onto their doorstep.
With their colleagues in captivity, their safety shattered, and their character being assassinated, the students of RSU Emohua Campus are issuing a desperate, unified cry. They are calling for an immediate and forceful security response to rescue the kidnapped, and are pleading with university and state authorities for urgent relocation to a safer learning environment.
The campus is now a place where lecture halls whisper of terror, and the path to education is paved with fear. As one student put it, “This is what we are living in.” The question now is whether anyone will listen before it is too late
