Relief, Jubilation As Five Abducted Abuja Sisters Regain Freedom

Five of the six sisters of the Al-Kadriyar family who were kidnapped by bandits in the Bwari area of Abuja have regained their freedom on Saturday night.

As of the time of this report, It wasn’t independently verified if the girls were rescued by security operatives or were released after their family paid ransom.

However, an uncle to the girls, Kabiru Aminu, who disclosed the news of their release, posted a video on his X handle @kabiru_aminu, showing the sisters and their relatives jubilating.

“#Najeebahandhersisters are home right now, someone please wake me up!” he tweeted.

“#Najeebahandhersisters. These girls are strong,” he added in a follow up tweet.

The six sisters, aged from the early teens to 23, were taken hostage in the Abuja suburb of Bwari along with their father, Mansoor Al-Kadriyar, who was later released to raise ransom. The gunmen asked the father to go get N60 million as ransom for the release of his daughters before Friday, January 12.

Unfortunately, his 21-year-old daughter, Nabeeha, a final year university student, was later killed as a warning that the huge ransom be paid.

In a bid to raise money, Nigerians were urged to donate whatever they had into a bank account, but not enough money was gathered

Following the gruesome killing of Najeebah, the Nigeria Police Force said it was intensifying plans to rescue the victims while assuring Nigerians that plans were ongoing to prevent further kidnapping cases across the country.

A former Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, had revealed that his friend had volunteered to pay the remaining N50 million out of the initial N60 million the bandits demanded.

The former minister added that as much as he does not support paying ransom to criminals, he had resorted to soliciting for the ransom after the kidnappers killed one of the sisters

Pantami also blamed security agencies for failing to track calls and other digital imprints of kidnappers after the completion of the synchronisation of Subscriber Identification Modules (SIMs) with National Identification Numbers (NINs), which was done in 2022 to help shore up the nation’s security structure and identify criminals terrorising Nigeria.