Police in Niger State have arrested one 26-year-old Nuhu Mohammed and Sani Usman, 22, of Izom town, Gurara Local Government Area of Niger State for allaged criminal conspiracy and killing of a 14-year-old secondary school student identified as Ubaida Surajo.
Wasiu Abiodun, the state’s Police Public Relations Officer in a statement on Friday said the young girl was killed at her parents’ residence in Izom, Gurara LGA on June 5, 2023 when her mother was away to Izom Market.
Abiodun said one of the suspects, Nuhu, who was a tenant in the same house confessed during the police interrogation that in the early hours of the same day, the deceased mother accused him of stealing her N90,000 saying that the accusation got him angry, and he decided to kill the girl.
He said the suspect explained that he invited his friend, Sani, to the house to assist him and they both attacked the girl when she returned from school by strangling her to death.
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The suspects reportedly left the scene and locked the house gate from outside only for the mother to come back from the market and found the victim lifeless.
Abiodun said six knives, two cutlasses, a digger and a suspected blood-stained shirt belonging to Nuhu were discovered when police searched his room.
Similarly, police in the state have arrested one 54-year-old Mohammed Bande ((aka Kachalla) of Saminaka Village, Lapai LGA of Niger State suspected to be a kidnapper while procuring arms and ammunition in Lambata, Gurara LGA.
The Niger State Police Command’s spokesperson, Abiodun, in a statement said the suspect was nabbed based on intelligence received about his activities.
Abiodun said the sum of N1.7 million was recovered from the suspect during his arrest, adding that during interrogation, the suspect confessed that the money was given to him by one Gora of the same village, presently at large, to meet a yet-to-be-identified arms dealer at Lambata to procure AK-47 ammunition.
“He further said that the purpose of the intended procurement was to boost their arms capacity for continued kidnapping and cattle rustling activities around Saminaka, Lapai, Lambata and its environs. He also said that he was promised N250,000 for the transaction,” the statement added.
Abiodun said effort was ongoing to apprehend the said Gora who is on the run, and other accomplices.
