Reported by: Ijeoma G | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
KUBWA, Abuja – Armed bandits shot a resident dead inside his apartment and dragged his younger brother into the bush in a brazen overnight assault on a Kubwa community, marking the third time the same hill has served as the gang’s entry route into the neighbourhood. The attack, which unfolded in a cluster of homes near the quarry area of Arab Road between 11pm on Saturday, June 6, 2026, and the early hours of Sunday, sent terrified residents diving for cover as sporadic gunfire echoed across the hillside.
The dead man, whose neighbours identified only as Muftahu, was found lifeless in his room after the assailants forced their way in. His brother, Abubakar Sadiq, was seized from the same apartment and marched into the darkness. Both victims were said to be in their mid‑twenties. A third brother, who was also present in the house during the attack, somehow managed to escape being captured. “They came with so much power. Before anyone could react, they were inside the house,” said a neighbour who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.
The community secretary, a man who gave his name only as Dairo, told reporters that local security men – a volunteer network of vigilantes and hunters who patrol the area at night – tried to repel the incursion. “We started hearing gunshots, and the house is towards the hill,” Dairo said in an interview published on Monday, June 8. “The local security tried to repel them in a gun battle.” But the resistance failed. The gunmen, who appeared to know exactly which house to target, pushed past the guards, broke into the apartment, killed Muftahu and made off with Sadiq before the police could respond. Officers arrived sometime after midnight, Dairo added, but by then the kidnappers had already vanished back across the hill they had used as a ramp.
This is the third time the same hill has been used as a gateway for kidnapping in the community. Dairo recalled that the first major incident happened around 2021 or 2022, when a corps member was abducted and another resident, a Mr Oshodi, was killed. A second successful abduction took place last year, when a resident was seized and later released after a ransom was paid. Worse still, the same gang had tried to breach the neighbourhood just two or three weeks before Saturday’s raid but was turned back by the presence of local security personnel. “They came, but they could not enter because of the local security presence,” Dairo said. “This is the third time kidnappers have come to the community through the hill.”
The trail of violence in Kubwa’s satellite communities has grown alarmingly persistent. Barely 48 hours before the Arab Road attack, a separate wave of abductions hit the neighbouring Paze and Ijayapi areas, where gunmen numbering about 28 stormed homes in the early hours of Thursday, June 4, killing a vigilante and hauling away four residents, including a pastor and an 11‑year‑old boy. Family sources later told Daily Trust that the abductors had demanded N10 million ransom for each of the victims. And a week before that, a resident of Kungabokun named Emmanuel Oluwale was snatched from his home, the second time he had been kidnapped in less than a month; his family had paid N7 million to secure his release after the first abduction.
For the people of the hill‑side neighbourhoods of Arab Road, the geography itself is now the enemy. The hill that rises behind their homes provides an elevated staging ground for bandits and a direct corridor to the vast forest reserves that snake outward from the FCT into neighbouring Niger and Kaduna states. “Once they come in through the hill and go back through the hill, the police struggle to track them,” one resident said. The secretary Dairo has called on the government to establish a police station or increase patrols in the area. “If the government can come and set up a police station or a patrol, they’ll be moving around every day,” he said. “Once they see the presence of security personnel around, I think that will scare them away.”
The Federal Capital Territory Police Command has yet to issue an official statement on the Arab Road killings and abduction. Attempts to reach the FCT police spokesperson, SP Josephine Adeh, on Monday were unsuccessful, as her telephone line was not reachable. However, earlier in the day, the command unveiled a specialised Violent Crime Response Unit aimed at combating kidnapping, armed robbery and other serious crimes across Abuja and its satellite communities. The unit, established on the directive of the Inspector‑General of Police, has been divided into five operational sectors to ensure faster response and improved intelligence gathering. Whether it will be able to secure the vulnerable hill‑side communities of Kubwa remains to be seen.
For now, the family of Abubakar Sadiq waits. His older brother lies in a mortuary. His younger brother is somewhere in the forest. And the hill that the bandits have used three times to steal people from their homes still stands, unguarded, at the edge of the community.
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