Let’s Talk About Wickedness Dressed as Opportunity
Twenty-three foreigners came to Nigeria with dreams of a better life — chasing job offers that looked shiny on paper. Instead, they walked straight into a nightmare.
The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command says its Scorpion Squad stormed Angwan Adamu Ruga Fulani Zone B in Ado Mararaba, Nasarawa State, and rescued 23 people who’d been locked up and squeezed for ransom by a kidnapping gang.
Yeah, twenty-three human beings — fourteen men, eight women, and one child — lured into the country under false pretenses, only to be locked up in two cramped, “fortified” two-bedroom apartments. They were living like prisoners in a foreign land, forced to call home and beg their families for ransom money — all through WhatsApp and other online channels.
This wasn’t some random neighborhood gang. The operation had international tentacles. The police traced the syndicate to a man named Abubakar Jigiba — a criminal kingpin whose CV reads like an African map of crime: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria. That’s his empire.
Jigiba’s brother, Sougule Zoubere, handled recruitment — which is a polite way of saying he tricked desperate people with fake job offers, smuggled them through illegal borders, and handed them over to kidnappers in Nigeria.
The price tag for each victim? Four million CFA — about ₦10 million per head.
That’s not human trafficking; that’s a business model of wickedness.
The police swooped in around 8 p.m. on Tuesday, October 22, 2025, acting on solid intelligence. SP Josephine Adeh, the FCT Police spokesperson, said the Scorpion Squad went in hard, rescued the victims unhurt (except one who got a minor ear injury), and arrested fourteen suspects.
Here’s the Roll Call of Disgrace
- Bubakari Cisse (40)
- Karamogo Dembele (25)
- Musa Kamsoko (23)
- Amadou Traore (25)
- Sareba Traore (24)
- Zoumana Diara (23)
- Umar Koulibaly (26)
- Alasgara Sagara (20)
- Berthe Saidu (23)
- Abdullahi Napo (32)
- Isah Goita (26)
- Lorita Traore (22)
- Mohammed Siaaibe (23)
- Haruna Dembele (37)
Most of them, foreign nationals too — proving that this wasn’t just a Nigerian problem; it was a full-blown transnational crime syndicate operating right under our noses.
The command says the masterminds, Jigiba and Zoubere, are still out there. But for how long? With this kind of attention, their days are numbered — unless, of course, they vanish into the system like most “wanted” criminals in this country do.
Let’s give credit where it’s due: CP Miller G. Dantawaye, the FCT Commissioner of Police, commended his Scorpion Squad for the successful rescue and reminded Nigerians — again — to report suspicious activities.
This rescue didn’t happen in isolation. Just a week earlier — October 15 — the same police command foiled another planned kidnapping in Byazhin Forest, Abuja. They recovered an AK-47 and ammunition.
When you can traffic 23 foreigners into Nigeria through “illegal routes” and lock them up for weeks without anyone noticing, that’s not just a police story — that’s a national embarrassment.
Let’s call it what it is — a crisis of governance, not just crime.
For now, 23 lives have been saved. But how many more are still trapped somewhere, waiting for their own rescue story?
The question hangs.