By Adamu Abdullahi
It started with a tip-off. Residents around the Fire Service Academy in Kwali noticed strange movements at night. They called the joint security team.
When the operatives arrived with local vigilantes, they caught them red-handed.
Two suspects Usman Muhammed from Yangoji and Mustapha Yusuf from Kwaita were arrested. According to security sources, both confessed on the spot.
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They were handed over to the Anti-Vandal Unit of the NSCDC at Kwali Division for interrogation and prosecution.
On paper, it was a win. Another breakthrough against infrastructure vandals who have been bleeding Kwali for months. Just weeks earlier, two other suspects were picked up along the Kaduna Road and Diko axes for similar crimes. They are still in custody.
Behind the celebrations, there is anger on the ground. A pattern that every operative knows but few want to say openly.
People are arrested for destroying public property streetlights, cables, transformers, school fittings worth millions and then suddenly, they disappear from custody.
Community leaders say it is not magic. It is interference.
Phone calls from influential figures. Quiet administrative pardons. Pressure on prosecution agencies to “settle it.”
One community source put it bluntly: “We risk our lives to report them. Then one big man calls from Abuja and the case dies.”
The result is a dangerous culture of impunity. Vandals return bolder. Residents stop reporting. And public assets bought with taxpayers’ money remain unprotected.
Speaking on the matter, the Chief Security Officer of Kwali Area Council warned security and prosecution agencies to resist external pressure.
He said if vandalism cases are not handled transparently, public trust will collapse.
”When people see that arrested vandals walk free without trial, they will stop giving intelligence. And without intelligence, we cannot protect anything,” he said.
The Kwali Area Council Administration commended the vigilante groups and security operatives for their swift response in the Fire Service Academy operation.
Officials stressed that public property is not government property it is community property.
They warned that any syndicate caught sabotaging critical infrastructure will face the full weight of the law, “without exception.”
The council is now pushing for deeper grassroots vigilance, urging all communities in Kwali to report suspicious movements around schools, transformers, and public installations.
But the question on every street in Kwali is simple: will this time be different?
Will Usman Muhammed and Mustapha Yusuf be prosecuted openly, or will the same powerful hands show up again?
