Report: Army — NOT police — rescued Abuja kidnap victims

Zagazola Makama, a counter-insurgency publication focused on the Lake Chad region, says it was the army that rescued the Al-Kadriyar sisters and other persons abducted from the Bwari area council of Abuja on January 2. 

The Al-Kadriyar sisters were reportedly released around midnight of Saturday.

Last week, there were reports that Nabeeha, one of the sisters, was killed by the abductors.

In a statement, the federal capital territory (FCT) police command said its anti-kidnapping squad, in collaboration with the army, rescued the sisters and other abductees.

“Following the relentless advancement of the Federal Capital Territory Police Command Anti-Kidnapping squad in a concerted effort with troops of the Nigerian Army, on the heels of the kidnappers that struck the Zuma 1 area in the Bwari Area Council on the 2nd of January 2024, the FCT Police has rescued the victims and reunited them with their families,” Josephine Adeh, the FCT police spokesperson, said in a statement.

“The operatives successfully rescued the victims around Kajuru forest in Kaduna state at about 11:30 pm on Saturday 20th January 2024.”

‘POLICE ONLY RECEIVED RESCUED VICTIMS’

In a report on Sunday, Zagazola Makama said the statement of the police does not “align with the verified actions taken by the army”.

The publication said the army only handed over the rescued victims to the police, and there was no time both security agencies collaborated on the rescue mission.

“Handing over rescued victims of abduction to civil police cannot be described as a joint operation, for God’s sake,” the publication quoted an anonymous officer, who was part of the operation, as saying.

“We have all the pictorial evidence marked with coordinates to show the time and location of the rescue which we have shared.

“No doubt we are all serving one nation and our core mandate is safeguarding the citizens, but it is highly demoralizing for our troops to hear that in an operation in which they came under deadly ambush, someone will dismiss their efforts by claiming that it was an operation conducted by the police anti-kidnapping squad in a joint effort with the army.”

Adeh, the FCT police spokesperson, did not respond to requests for comments on Zagazola Makama’s report before this story was published.