Conflicting accounts by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), the Benue State Police Command and Governor Hyacinth Alia have created uncertainty over the identity of passengers abducted along the Makurdi–Otukpo road on Wednesday, April 15.
While JAMB and the police insist that none of the victims was candidates for the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and the state governor maintains that eight of those rescued were students travelling and scheduled to sit the examination.
In a statement issued by the police spokesperson, Udeme Edet, on 17 April, the command dismissed reports that the victims were UTME candidates as claimed.
“The command also wishes to clarify misinformation circulating in some news media suggesting that the victims were part of a convoy conveying students to write the UTME. The command states that this claim is incorrect,” the statement read.
It added that the victims were not “confirmed to be part of any organised UTME-bound student convoy but passengers in a Markudi-bound bus.”
Similarly, JAMB, in a separate statement signed by its spokesperson, Fabian Benjamin on 18 April, said reports linking the incident to its examination were “erroneous.”
“Notably, none of the victims were UTME candidates. Rather, they were individuals who had travelled to Makurdi to participate in the ongoing police recruitment exercise and were returning to Otukpo at the time of the incident,” the board said.
However, Governor Alia gave a different account on Sunday after receiving 13 rescued victims at the Government House in Makurdi.
“Among the victims were eight students travelling to sit for the JAMB examinations,” he said.
He appealed to JAMB to make “special arrangements” for the affected candidates to sit their examinations.