News
Kaduna abduction: Police finally own up after initial denial
From Louis Edet House, headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), finally came a confirmation on Wednesday, of the abduction of 177 Christians at Kurmin Wali community in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, after days of denial, uncertainty and conflicting reports.
Benjamin Hundeyin, spokesman of the central police authorities came out with a full statement acknowledging the incident, which sparked fear and anxiety among residents, saying the initial denial to prevent public panic over the issue.
Clarifying the official stance by the Kaduna State Police Command, stating there was no such incident during a meeting of the Kaduna State Security Council convened by Governor Uba Sani, Hundeyin said: “Subsequent verification from operational units and intelligence sources has confirmed that the incident did occur.”
The statement stressed that the police had to apply caution after some individuals from the affected local government area described the report as false, creating uncertainty and the need for further verification by security agencies.
Using its X platform, the NPF wrote: “The Nigeria Police Force acknowledges the deep concern generated by reports of an abduction incident at Kurmin Wali, a remote community in Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State.”
Explaining that comments earlier made by the Commissioner of Police in Kaduna State, Rabiu Muhammad, which were widely interpreted as a denial, were in fact aimed at preventing public panic while details were being confirmed, the statement added that subsequent checks by operational units and intelligence sources confirmed the abduction.
“In response, the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has ordered the deployment of critical operational and intelligence assets to Kajuru and surrounding communities,” the statement said, adding that tactical units had been deployed, patrols intensified, and targeted search-and-rescue operations underway to locate and safely rescue the victims, while restoring calm to the area.
The statement also appealed to the public and the media to rely only on official sources for verified information and to avoid speculation that could jeopardise ongoing operations.
Against the backdrop of the alarm raised by John Hayab, Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in the northern region, that scores of worshippers were abducted in the community, Rabiu who had dismissed the report as “false,” challenged those with evidence of the incident to table it.
“Anyone who has evidence should come forward with the list of kidnapped persons and their particulars,” Rabiu had told reporters, a position which was also echoed by officials of the Kaduna State Government.
Sule Shuaibu, Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, who also described the development as “completely false,” hinged his position on contacts he had made with residents of the area including officials of CAN.
The official volte-face was made on the heels of the release of the identities of the 177 victims, said to have been kidnapped from ECWA Church and Cherubim and Seraphim Churches 1 and 2 at in the said community in a raid said to have occurred during services on Sunday.
The list paints a harrowing picture of entire families taken away from their homes and places of worship, leaving the community traumatised and virtually empty of able-bodied residents.
The raid came barely a week after the same community paid N2.6 million ransom to secure the release of 20 residents previously abducted, Vanguard reliably gathered.
While government and security operatives denied the incident, a Police situation report obtained by Vanguard confirmed the attack occurred during church services.
The report stated that information was received at about 5:45pm, on Sunday, indicating that the assailants struck around 11:25am, firing sporadically and forcing worshippers to flee into the surrounding forest.
The situation report read: “Message received from DPO Kajuru indicates that on 18/01/2026 at about 1745hrs an information was received that same date at about 1125hrs, unspecified numbers of bandits armed with sophisticated weapons attacked ECWA church and Cherubim Serafim Church 2 at Kurmin Wali in Kajuru lga, The communities are yet to ascertain the number of worshipers kidnapped to unknown destination, the village is situated in a remote forest area, the DPO mobilized other sister security agencies and the military to the scene which cannot be accessed immediately due to bad road, concerted effort in collaboration with all stakeholders has been intensified to rescue the victims and possibly arrest the perpetrators, investigation has commenced”.
As of yesterday, the village was deserted. Those who escaped had fled to nearby communities to stay with relatives and friends.
Some who sustained injuries during the escape were reportedly still in shock, while poor network coverage and lost phones made it difficult to reach them for comment.
Analysis of the 177 victims
Analysis of the 177 names obtained by Vanguard revealed that entire households were abducted. Families such as the Jonathan household had 12 members kidnapped; the Amos family 13; Markus/Makudi 10; Ishaya and Danisa seven each; Bawa six, Danjuma and Musa five each.
Other families saw four, three, or two members taken away. The oldest victim is 71-year-old Augustina Matthew, while the youngest, Salvation Idris, is a child of six.
Other children include Likita Amos, 6; Jumota Idris, 7; Tessy Amos, 8; Yahaya Joshua, 9; and several 10-year-olds, including Sussana Idris, Synthah Amos, Hezibah and Hezikaiah Jonathan.
The denial by government officials has drawn sharp criticism from rights groups. Christian Solidarity Worldwide Nigeria, CSW-N which insisted that the abduction occurred and accused security agents of obstructing independent verification.
CSW-N Research and Press Officer Reuben Buhari said: “Thirty minutes after the incident, as the team was about to enter Kurmin Wali, CSW-N encountered a military convoy, including the chairman of Kajuru Local Government, which was leaving the community.
“They later refused to allow CSW-N team entry, despite repeated pleas and after the team showed full identification. The military officer who stopped the CSW-N said there was a standing order not to allow us in. Consequently, our team turned and was escorted to the main road, back to Kaduna.”
Explaining further, CSW-N added that the attackers arrived on motorcycles and on foot, split into three groups, and simultaneously targeted the churches, adding: “Elderly women and young children were later released, while 11 reportedly escaped, leaving 167 in captivity at the time of the organisation’s engagement with community sources,’’ the group stated.
The Chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, in the 19 northern states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Rev. Dr. Joseph Hayab, accused security agents of enabling the bandits to escape with large number of victims.
He said: “If the security agents had gone after the bandits, they would have prevented them from taking the victims to where they are now hiding. Instead, the security agents only helped the bandits move the victims to a place where they could conceal them and make their demands.
“Had they pursued the attackers immediately, instead of arguing over whether anyone had, indeed, been kidnapped, they would have chased them away, whether they were right or wrong.”
I will always refer to the encounter I once had with Kenneth Idiodi. He was then the leader of the Rosicrucian Society in Nigeria, otherwise known as Amok. It was a sit-down at Zodiac Hotel Enugu. Then, I was the reporter of The Guardian in the Coal City.
You know the Amok faith bases its philosophy or belief on the law of Retributive Justice – the law of Karma. That is to say, everything you do in life has its rewards or punishment in equal measure – much like the measure you give, the measure you receive.
I don’t know how much this society draws or links this belief from or with the Bible, but I do recall Jesus Christ warning Simon Peter – return your sword to the scabbard – for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.
As a child growing up I listened to one of the epics of Oriental Brothers with the lyrics – ogbu mma ga-esi n’mma na, ogba egbe ga-esi n’egbe na ooo! Translated – he who kills by the sword will die by the sword, he who kills by the gun will die by the nozzle of the gun.
Now, here is where this is relevant in present Nigerian reality – the reason I’m putting details of that encounter out publicly once again, having done so previously.
During that encounter, Idiodi used one event in Nigeria to illustrate his point. He told me of a Nigerian leader who commanded the troop that carried out the Asaba massacre in the heat of the Nigerian civil war – an episode, said to have claimed over 2,000 able-bodied men who had come out to welcome the Nigerian soldiers with songs and dances only to fall in the hail of bullets that descended on them like rainstorms – was not spared by fate.
That commander was to meet his own death in a hail of bullets even as a Head of State. He never mentioned the name of the military top brass. But I used my tongue to count my teeth to come to the answer. You could also do same – use your tongue.
Now, how does this relate? You may have followed the outing of General Yakubu Gowon at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, where he presented his autobiography titled: My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that contained what seemed his memoir on the Nigerian civil war, which he prosecuted as Head of State.
I’m sure you must have been observing the debate therefrom that event. Now, I’m not so much enamoured of the debate as I’m of the nuances surrounding that unfortunate episode and the role of Gowon in it, given my takeaway from that Idiodi encounter some two decades ago.
Does Gowon, now a nonagenarian really believe that presenting a pious, if not saintly account of himself to the world as snippets of his book, which I picked up here and there suggests, truly suffices for the atrocities of that period?
Take the Asaba massacre for example. Was that the handiwork of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, whom the former Head of State seems to blame for everything that went wrong. Was he also the one that commanded that mass slaughtering of innocent men?
Under your nose as Head of State, you watched citizens slaughtered mercilessly like infested herds in the streets – you watched young girls corralled into leprosy colonies and wantonly raped before being wasted – you watched as train coaches bearing people fleeing the scene were stopped and their human cargoes thrown alive into River Benue like rotten goods for fishes to feast on – you watched all these and didn’t lift a finger.
Then as Head of State, you not only supervised but watched millions of children with distended stomachs, tiny feet, glazy eyes, heavy heads on ropelike necks, practically begging for death to come quickly and save them from further punishment.
You supervised and watched the cataclysmic eruptions from the blitzkrieg on churches, markets and hospitals – all to keep Nigeria together. In your mind the brutal and merciless butchery of innocent people who were not soldiers and had nothing to do with the war could be explained away just like that?
O! It was Ojukwu that caused it. Ojukwu was the one who released the bombs, caused the blockades that led to the kwashiorkor that killed millions or other atrocities thereof? What a pity!
Now, I return to Idiodi. How else could anyone interpret today’s Nigeria without introducing the law of retributive justice that the Amok leader spoke of? How do you fault the link of the commander who massacred over 2,000 souls dying by the barrel of the same gun, even as Head of State?
How could anyone fail to relate what is happening to our Gowon today with the past? This is a Geneal that wakes up to see hundreds of his brothers and sisters being buried in mass graves as was done during the onslaught he supervised against another people and he still thinks it has nothing to do with him?
Now, the story you told at that event in Abuja on Tuesday, is not new. You simply repeated yourself. My interpretation of that event is that you’re a man undergoing daily torture. You wouldn’t be a human being otherwise, given what is before you, which didn’t start today.
You’re probably trying to escape your fate by appealing to public sympathy. How helpful could that be in the face of the clear evidence of your culpability in the deliberate wasting of more than three million souls? Nobody would believe you.
Yes! They could humour you. But that’s the best anyone could do for you. I hear money rained like a fountain and that you left the scene with billions of naira in your kitty. At 90? Haba General!
Now, here is the thing General. None of these would help.
None would work. You have tried prayers. But you forget that the prayer of sinner is an abomination and a reproach before God, unless he repents. You have also written the book. Surely, this too would end up in the trashcan of history – meaningless piece of conjectures, propaganda, half-truths and outright lies – perhaps!
But, why don’t you try the one thing you have been running away from, for more than five decades – go on your knees in total supplication and surrender, repentance and penance – then rise, call all Nigerians and empty yourself with the truth.
Thereafter openly apologise to the millions of souls whose tormenting wailing you probably hear every day during your disturbed sleep and in your quiet moments, but choose to suppress with these baby tales. Ask them for forgiveness, genuinely and see. There may lie the answer you seek.
Try that and see if it wouldn’t be a more efficacious cure for this decades-old wound than this Ojukwu-bashing and those wasted prayer sessions. You might not only have atoned for the past, but saved the future. May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
“Now that the court has ruled against it, we are sure that, in the coming days, we will witness a mass exodus from the ruling party,” were the words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC) welcomed Wednesday’s ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja reversing the deadline for party primaries, among others.
Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman, who conveyed the party’s excitement over the development, said it viewed the ruling as vindication of its objections to key aspects of the electoral body’s guidelines at the time they were issued.
Recalling its specific objections to the strict timelines on membership registration as well as the conduct of party primaries, the statement, said: “The decision of the court on these issues, including those that directly contradict the constitution, is therefore a welcome vindication of our position.”
Stressing that the ruling, which removed the impediment placed by the guidelines on politicians who wished to seek alternative platforms to contest elections, was a positive development that would promote freedom of association, the statement, added: “We believed at the time that that particular restriction was designed to prevent people from leaving the ruling party, APC.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that the United States was laser-focused on changing the communist system, after the island was stunned by a US indictment of its former president Raul Castro.
The US military announced that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships had entered the Caribbean, although President Donald Trump, asked if the deployment was meant to intimidate Cuba, said, “No, not at all.”
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous opponent of Havana’s government, described the island 90 miles (145 kilometres) from the US shore as a “failed state” as it suffers a major economic crisis.
“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place. What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out.
“They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused. The US preference is always a diplomatic solution, but President Donald Trump has other options at his disposal.”
Stating that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer by the United States of $100 million in aid in return for reforms, he said it was unclear if the United States would accept Cuba’s terms, as Washington insists on circumventing the military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy.
Rubio said Thursday that the GAESA chief’s Florida-based sister, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested and was being held by US immigration authorities, adding in an X post: “Managing real estate assets…while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”
The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996.
Cuban authorities called on citizens to protest the “despicable” indictment, with the official newspaper Granma urging Cubans to gather outside the US embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 am (1230 GMT).
“This isn’t really an accusation, something from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant, told AFP in Havana.
Trump in January seized on a US domestic indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro to send in US forces to depose him and take him into custody.
“The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
The Maduro operation led to the end of free oil from Venezuela to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its needs.
Cubans have suffered power outages of up to 20 hours a day and taps running dry.
Runaway inflation has caused the price of basic goods to soar and mountains of trash have piled up on the streets of Havana.
In addition to murder, Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.
The Cuban government called the 1996 shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.
China and Russia both criticized Trump’s steps on Cuba, which come as he tries to end an unpopular war he started with Israel against Iran.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state.
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