by Stanley Azuakola

As though the news of the gruesome killing of 22 students in Mubi, Adamawa State this week isn’t sad enough, there are reports now that some of those students could have been saved from the assassins’ knives and bullets, if they had been warned by their friends. Unfortunately that wasn’t to be as a result of sabotaged phone lines, according to some survivors of the incident.

John Bello, a student of Mubi Polytecnic, said that only one mobile phone network was working in the town and on that day, it was congested.

“We could maybe have alerted some of those that were killed if the networks weren’t down,” Bello said.

Another student Danjuma said that “Many students didn’t find out what happened until they saw students running (away). When we tried to call those in the affected area, our calls didn’t go through.

” The Mubi attack comes barely a month after Boko Haram claimed responsibility for attacking 20 telecommunication masts in the Northern part of the country, effectively crippling mobile phone communication in many areas of the North including Adamawa.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, although there are increasing speculations that it was a fallout of a student union election.

The police have not disclosed if they have any concrete leads on the matter and they still haven’t informed the families of those who lost relatives that day.