“The police and the military are on top of the situation. We are trying to liaise with the school management to know the exact number of students that were abducted and then see the possibility of rescuing them unhurt and arresting the perpetrators,” Kaduna police spokesman Mohammed Jalige said.
Jamilu Abdullahi is a student at the college and told CNN he heard the attackers shooting when they arrived at around 3 am.
Abdullahi said the armed men made a beeline for the female hostel, even though the male dormitory is nearer the fence where they came in.
“We saw them and ran away… the bandits came and were firing their guns and took away the girls,” he said.
While it is unclear how many students were kidnapped, Abdullahi said the number of girls living in that hostel was between 80 and 100.
This abduction is the latest in a string of similar kidnapping cases. More than 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped from a school in Zamfara State, also in northwest Nigeria, earlier this month.
Kidnapping for ransom is rife in parts of Nigeria and has become a major security challenge. State governors regularly pay ransoms to secure the safety of victims but rarely admit to doing so.