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Patience Ogbodo-Iwuagwu
Police operatives of the Enugu State Command serving in the Trans-Ekulu Division have arrested a 26-year-old male suspect, Chibuike Joshua Ugwuja, for staging his kidnap.
According to the police, Joshua demanded thirty-five million naira (N35,000,000) as ransom from his family after he faked the kidnap.
Police Public Relations Officer, Enugu State Command, SP Daniel Ndukwe, disclosed this in a statement he made available to journalists on Monday.
According to the statement, Joshua father had, on 24th November 2025 at about 4 p.m., reported to the Division that his son, who works as a private security guard in an estate in Trans-Ekulu, left for work on 22nd November 2025 and failed to return.
He further disclosed that the suspect sent a Facebook message to their female neighbour, claiming he had been abducted by unknown persons in a commercial bus and that his supposed abductors were demanding ransom.
However, while investigations and efforts to locate and rescue the purported victim were ongoing, the suspect was brought to the Police Station by his father on 30th November 2025 at about 2 p.m. This followed days of intensified search operations by police operatives, who had been working to trace his whereabouts and rescue him.
Upon interrogation, the suspect confessed to staging the self-kidnapping. He revealed that after closing from work, he went to the residence of a friend at Amorji Nike, Enugu, rather than returning home, and from there masterminded the false kidnap. He demanded ₦35,000,000 from his family but eventually returned home on 29th November 2025 at about 9 a.m. after his ransom demands were not met, attributing his actions to frustration over his uncle’s alleged inability to procure a tricycle for him.
The suspect has been taken into custody and will be arraigned in court and prosecuted accordingly once investigations are concluded. The police remain committed to ensuring that individuals who abuse public trust and cause unwarranted panic are made to face the full weight of the law.
The Commissioner of Police, CP Mamman Bitrus Giwa has described the incident as a regrettable height of criminality and commended the suspect’s parents for promptly reporting the matter and producing their son, rather than withholding him.
He reassured the public that the law will take its full course and urged citizens to always report suspected cases of kidnapping and cooperate with the police, rather than hastily giving in to ransom demands.
