Key Points

• Suspected gunmen arrived in a bus around 2:00 a.m. and forcefully entered a health center in Okeijebu, Akure, taking six workers including interns on night duty.
• Ondo security outfit Amotekun rescued three of the abducted health workers during overnight operations; the whereabouts of the remaining three were unknown at the time of reporting.
• The Ondo State Police Command had not issued any statement on the hospital abduction at the time of filing.

It was just past 2:00 in the morning when a bus pulled up outside a health center in Okeijebu, a quiet neighborhood in Akure, Ondo State. What followed took only minutes and left a community reeling.

Suspected gunmen climbed out, forced their way into the facility and rounded up everyone they could find.

Six health workers, among them interns who had drawn the overnight shift, were bundled into the vehicle and driven off into the dark.

Swift, precise and gone

A patient who narrowly avoided being taken described the operation as calculated and fast, leaving staff almost no chance to react or call for help.

“They came in a big bus and entered the hospital forcefully,” the witness said. “Before anyone could react, they gathered all the staff on duty and took six of them away.”

The abduction, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday, sent immediate shockwaves through the area.

Health facilities are already understaffed across much of Ondo State, and attacks targeting medical workers have grown into a grim pattern across southwestern Nigeria.

Amotekun moves in

The state security network, Amotekun, did not wait for dawn. Operatives launched overnight operations across Akure South Local Government Area and managed to recover three of the six abducted health workers before morning.

The rescued workers were taken to the Amotekun health facility in Akure for treatment and assessment.

The same night had already been violent. Two civilians, a 45-year-old man and his 15-year-old son, were kidnapped separately along Pelebe on the Oda-Akure road, between 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

The Rapid Response Squad located and freed them around 1:00 a.m. following a direct confrontation with their abductors.

Amotekun state commander Adeleye confirmed the rescues and urged residents not to sit on information that could help security agencies act faster.

“The safety of lives and property remains a top priority,” Adeleye said, adding that timely tips from the public had already proven decisive in the night’s operations.

Police silent as families wait

With three workers still unaccounted for as of the time of reporting, the silence from the Ondo State Police Command was conspicuous.

Spokesperson DSP Jimoh Abayomi had not issued any statement on the hospital abduction, leaving families and colleagues without official word on what was being done to find those still missing.

A troubling pattern

The raid fits a broader and deeply unsettling trend. In recent years, kidnappers operating across Ondo and neighboring states have grown bolder, hitting targets that would once have been considered off-limits.

Schools, places of worship and now health centers have all been struck, each attack compounding the strain on communities already stretched thin.

Security analysts have long warned that gaps in rural and peri-urban surveillance make health facilities, which operate through the night with skeleton crews, particularly vulnerable.

The three workers still missing had not been located as of press time. Investigations are ongoing.