Brazen Kidnappers Seize Six Inside Kaduna Gated Community
By Mike Odeh James
(KADUNA CITY) — Suspected Fulani Ethnic Militia (FEM) gunmen broke through the second gate of Nurul Siraj, a gated housing development in Kaduna’s Millennium City, seizing six people.
Residents said the attackers struck between midnight and 1 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 27, firing sporadically as they moved in. They escaped with their captives after an exchange of fire with pursuing soldiers.
“Last night, kidnappers picked almost six people, both men and women, at Nurul Siraj … through the second gate,” a resident told Blueprint newspaper on condition of anonymity.
Accounts differ on the number taken. Daily Trust reported that the attackers seized eight people from two neighboring houses, then released two elderly women because of their age. The six still held include two secondary school students.
Troops Gave Chase, Gunmen Got Away
Soldiers chased the kidnappers and rescued some victims, Maman Hamid, who lives near the victims’ homes, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). The gunmen still vanished into the night with the rest.
Residents told reporters it was the first time they had heard gunfire at such close range.
By Thursday, the Kaduna State Police Command had not publicly said how many people were taken, rescued or still held. TruthNigeria’s calls to police spokesman DSP Mansir Hassan went unanswered.
Second Strike in Three Weeks
Tuesday’s raid is the second abduction from a Millennium City housing development this month. On Oct. 6, Fulani Terrorists took Ahmed Abubakar Zakka, his wife and their six-month-old daughter, Fatima, from Alrahus, a nearby gated community. The family was later rescued after a ransom video spread widely online, reaching audiences in the United States.
Six days later, police announced the arrest of eight suspected kidnappers and four alleged informants in raids across Millennium City and Maraban Rido. Officers recovered AK-47 rifles. Police said two suspects confessed to leaking details of police operations to the gangs. The Kaduna State Government handed the command three more armored personnel carriers.
“[Millennium City is] largely surrounded by forested areas and lies within the outskirts of the Kaduna metropolis,” the command said, adding that it had intensified clearance operations, targeted raids and patrols.
Fifteen days after those arrests, gunmen were back inside a guarded gate.
Abduction Corridor Reaches the City
Millennium City is a fast-growing residential district in Chikun County on the edge of Kaduna, the political capital of northern Nigeria, about 120 miles north of Abuja. Chikun has long served as a corridor for mass abduction.
In July 2021, gunmen seized 121 students from Bethel Baptist High School in Chikun. In March 2024, more than 130 pupils were abducted from a school in Kuriga, also in Chikun.
What has changed is the target. Gangs that once struck remote villages and highways now reach into gated communities on the city’s doorstep, where middle-class families, civil servants and traders live. Residents have repeatedly called for stronger patrols and tighter control of entry points. Tuesday’s raid exploited exactly that weakness: a second gate.
Kajuru: 18 Abducted in One Week
The villages 25 miles to the southeast have lived with this nightmare for years.
Between Oct. 14 and Oct. 20, Fulani Terrorists struck Mission Maraban Kajuru, Ngwaku Ungwan Soro, Janwuriya and Kutura Station in Kajuru County, abducting at least 18 people and killing a young man on his farm, said Alipiri Ado, Chairman of the Internally Displaced Persons Camp in Kajuru County.
At Kutura Station on Oct. 16, the attackers found villagers in their hiding places and took five, including two teenagers aged 15 and 16. On Oct. 20 at Mission Maraban Kajuru, those taken included a one-month-old girl and a 76-year-old man. One of seven people seized at Janwuriya has since regained freedom, Ado said.
Ado oversees camps that hold families driven from villages like these.
Washington Angle
The attack lands as Washington sharpens its scrutiny of Nigeria’s security record. The United States has designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern over violations of religious freedom, and members of Congress, including Rep. Riley Moore, have pressed to keep that label.
In September, U.S. Africa Command flew weapons into Nigeria aboard C-17 cargo aircraft, part of a deepening security partnership.
For U.S. lawmakers weighing that partnership, Millennium City poses a pointed question. If Fulani Terrorists can breach a guarded community on the outskirts of a state capital, trade fire with soldiers and still leave with captives, what protection reaches the farming villages of Kajuru?
Kaduna’s kidnapping trade runs on ransom. Nigeria amended its terrorism law in 2022 to criminalize ransom payments, yet abductions have not stopped.
As of Thursday, there was no public word on the fate of those taken from Nurul Siraj. Their neighbors are still listening for gunfire at the second gate.
Mike Odeh James reports for TruthNigeria.
