Over 20 students shot dead in northern Nigeria state

ADAMAWA, Nigeria, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- Over 20 students were shot dead in an attack by gunmen who stormed a location close to the Federal Polytechnic in Mubi area of northeast Nigeria's Adamawa State, rescue officials told Xinhua on Tuesday. Spokesperson of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Yushau Shuaib confirmed the incident, saying the agency had mobilized rescue officials to the tertiary academic institution in Mubi and the location of the students' off-campus hostel in Wuro Patuji in the northeastern state. "The crisis is suspected to have been fueled by campus politics after an election at the Federal Polytechnic. Normalcy has returned to the institution," said Shuaib in a text message to Xinhua. According to him, the dead bodies had been deposited in a mortuary while the injured casualties had been rushed to various health facilities in the state. A Nigerian citizen, Andrew Sunday who witnessed the massacre and assisted the victims voluntarily, said he counted 27 dead bodies of the undergraduates before they were taken to the mortuary. "The dead and injured persons were mostly students of the polytechnic. We have a feeling that it was a cult clash by students on campus who felt the students union election did was not properly conducted," he added.