By Aideloje Ojo
Minna
The police in Niger state have arrested 12 security staff of the Mainstream Energy Solutions Ltd operators of Kainji Hydroelectric Power plant for the theft of navigation block metals and beams valued at N4.8billion .
The police confirmed the arrest on Wednesday in a statement issued by the Police Public Relations Officer PPRO SP Wasiu Abiodun in Minna.
He explained that the case was on August 12th 2025 transferred from New-Bussa Div to SCID Minna with two suspects in furtherance to the investigation of a criminal complaint received from Mainstream Energy Solutions Ltd dated August 11th, 2025 which indicated that within July 2025, an inspection was conducted in the navigation lock yard of Kainji power plant at Kaya junction, during which it was discovered that some navigation lock metals and beams were vandalised and stolen by unknown persons valued over 4.8bn naira.
He said that the New-Bussa Division arrested two security supervisors as suspects from the power plant namely
Shaibu Abu Sufyan 35yrs of New-Bussa and Ibrahim Musa 31yrs of the same address.
“The operatives of the SCID led by DSP Ahmed Saidu commenced further investigation, and Abu Sufyan who initially denied the alleged crime, later confessed when confronted with facts. He stated that he perpetrated the act with other staff”, the PPRO said.
According to the PPRO, the suspect listed the other staff to include Ibrahim Musa, Zayyanu Musa, Jibrin Abdullahi, Hassan Musa, Micah Adamu, Attahiru Umar, Abdulrahman Usman, Ismaila Ibrahim, Mubarak Husseini, Adamu Abubakar and Abdullahi Abubakar a.k.a Zuma, all security staff under Abu Sufyan.
He said, “Preliminary investigation revealed that all suspects conspired and contacted one Musa Khalid, Abah Khalid and Abdullahi who are major scrap dealers in Nasarawa village of Mashegu LGA, mobilised to the location of the navigation lock gates. Musa Khalid and others usually moved to the location with acetylene gas mostly during weekends at night, vandalised the metals, cut into sizes and used a crane to load it into canter trucks which has been happening since 2023 – 2025”.
SP Abiodun said, “It was discovered that the plant’s store and other manhole covers were also tampered with, as heavy equipment was carted away from the store. Over #12.5m transactions were discovered between Abu Sufyan and Musa Khalid, and over #11.5m transactions were also discovered between Ibrahim Musa and Musa Khalid and others”.
