SSS FOILS ATTEMPTS TO KIDNAP YAR’ADUA’S DAUGHTER •2 suspects arrested

THE Directorate of the State Security Service (DSS) has foiled attempts by two suspects to kidnap one of the daughters of the late former president, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua, in Abuja, as it also arrested two kingpins who plotted the abduction, with four others said to be on the run.
The spokesperson of the service, Marilyn Ogar, who paraded the two suspects, Hamza Abubakar and Lawrence Okoro Dennis, said the gang had plotted to kidnap one of the daughters of the late former president at a construction site at Kado, a suburb of Abuja, before the operatives of the service, acting on a tip-off, struck.
She disclosed that the suspects, working in collaboration with four others now at large, had planned to kidnap their target and detain her in Zuba, another suburb of Abuja, in a residence of an acquaintance to one of the arrested suspects.
Both suspects were said to have been former inmates at  Kano central prison and reunited after their release sometime this year.
Ogar, who assured that the two suspects would be charged to court as soon as the ongoing investigations were concluded, said the service would leave no stone un-turned to track the fleeing suspects in order to bring them to justice.
Leader of the gang, Denis, while fielding questions from newsmen confessed that he had just been released from the prison after he had served 13 years jail term and admitted to being the brain behind the plot, while Abubakar also admitted participating in the plot.
In a related development, the service also smashed a syndicate who specialised in forging educational certificates, Indian visas, Nigerian international passports and fraudulent mobilisation of fake corps members, leading to mobilisation of about 30 fake corps members nationwide, using forged certificates and NYSC call-up numbers.
Leader of the syndicate, Nicholas Eze,who graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) in 2006, was paraded along with other five fake serving corps members from whom he had collected various amount of money ranging from N70,000 to N120,000, all amounting to N530,000, before he was able to produce them fake NYSC call-up letters for mobilisation as genuine corps members.
All the five fake corps members paraded along with the syndicate leader, three females and two males, confessed to having committed the offence, but explained that they took the action because of one problem or the other they had in  their different institutions.
The service also paraded one 65-year-old retired civil servant, Elias Adams, who had been parading himself as General Abubakar Sani, with the intent of duping and intimidating individuals and corporate organisations, including the Pipelines Products Marketing Company (PPMC).
Ogar told newsmen that the suspect was nabbed following a complaint received from the management of the PPMC over his dubious activities and, as well, presenting himself to the management of the company that he was the Special Adviser to the  President on Defence and also a co-ordinating member of the National Committee on Flood Relief and Rehabilitation.
The fake army General was also said to have impersonated a former Minister of Defence and secured up to five lorry load of diesel from the Warri and Kaduna NNPC depots respectively, claiming that the former minister mandated him to distribute the products to Muslims for sallah celebration in Takum, Taraba State.
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