{"id":75638,"date":"2025-09-24T14:34:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=75638"},"modified":"2025-09-24T14:34:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T14:34:05","slug":"%e2%82%a64-8bn-theft-uncovered-at-kainji-power-plant-14-suspects-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/09\/24\/%e2%82%a64-8bn-theft-uncovered-at-kainji-power-plant-14-suspects-arrested\/","title":{"rendered":"\u20a64.8bn Theft Uncovered at Kainji Power Plant, 14 Suspects Arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Niger State Police Command has arrested 14 suspects in connection with two major criminal cases: the \u20a64.8 billion theft and vandalism at the Kainji Power Plant, and a staged kidnapping attempt to extort \u20a67 million.<\/p>\n

Police spokesperson SP Wasiu Abiodun, in a statement on Wednesday, said the first case followed a complaint filed on August 11, 2025, by Mainstream Energy Solutions Ltd., operators of the Kainji Power Plant. An inspection revealed large-scale vandalism of navigation lock metals and beams.<\/p>\n

Two plant supervisors, Shaibu Abu Sufyan (35) and Ibrahim Musa (31), were arrested and initially denied involvement.<\/p>\n

However, Abu Sufyan later confessed, implicating ten security personnel under his command.<\/p>\n

The suspects allegedly worked with scrap dealers from Nasarawa village, Mashegu LGA, who dismantled the metals using heavy equipment and acetylene gas, moving them secretly at night.<\/p>\n

Investigations showed that Abu Sufyan and Musa received \u20a612.5 million and \u20a611.5 million, respectively, from the illegal sales.<\/p>\n

The stolen materials were reportedly sold to companies in Lagos, Kwara, and Osun States. Police said efforts are ongoing to track other accomplices.<\/p>\n

In a separate case, police uncovered a staged kidnapping in Minna, where two men conspired to extort \u20a67 million from colleagues.<\/p>\n

The incident was reported to Tudun-Wada Division on September 2, 2025, leading to the arrest of nine suspects and the recovery of 21 SIM cards linked to fraudulent activities under a fake network marketing group known as Quest Int\u2019l Company.<\/p>\n

The alleged victim, Ahmed Alh. Bura (21), and his accomplice, Shafiu Ibrahim (22), were arrested on September 17.<\/p>\n

Police said the duo attended a car drifting event before faking Bura\u2019s disappearance and demanding ransom in a fabricated kidnapping scheme. All suspects are currently in SCID custody in Minna and will be prosecuted.<\/p>\n

Separately, the Defence Headquarters had earlier confirmed on May 3, 2025, the arrest of four security personnel accused of aiding terrorist activities in the North-East. Maj. Gen. Markus Kangye disclosed that the arrests were made during operations between April 26 and 29 in Bama, Kukawa, and Madagali LGAs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata   The Niger State Police Command has arrested 14 suspects in connection with two major criminal cases: the \u20a64.8 billion theft and vandalism at the Kainji Power Plant, and a staged kidnapping attempt to extort \u20a67 million. Police spokesperson SP Wasiu Abiodun, in a statement on Wednesday, said the first case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":75639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75640,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75638\/revisions\/75640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}