It's the fourth mass school abduction in the country since December.

The Federal College of Forestry Mechanization sits on the outskirts of Kaduna city, a region where banditry has vested for years.

Kaduna state security commissioner said that an armed gang attacked the college at around 11:30 p.m. Local time on Thursday.

He said that the army rescued some 180 people in the early hours of Friday, but that quote about 30 students, a mix of males and females are yet to be accounted for.

One local resident said he'd heard sporadic gunshots which he initially thought were military exercises from the nearby Nigerian Defence Academy.

The trend of abduction from boarding schools was started by the jihadist group Boko Haram, but it has since been taken up by armed criminal gangs seeking ransom.

Military and police attempts to tackle the gangs have had little success so far.