Gunmen waylay Niger Chief Accountant, hijack N9.5m cash

Some daredevil gunmen on Monday morning attacked the Chief Accountant from the office of the Niger state Head of Service, Idris Abdullahi and carted away over N9.5 million he had with him.

The Chief Accountant was said to have been returning from the bank at about 10.30 am where he went to withdraw the money.

It was learnt the money was meant for the overhead expenses of the office of the Head of Service.

This incident is coming barely two weeks after gunmen waylaid an official of the Niger State Judicial Service Commission and collected over N1.5 million meant for expenses of the commission.


An eyewitness said the gunmen blocked the car of the Chief Accountant when he got to the gate of the Secretariat, started shooting sporadically and removed the money from the vehicle before zooming off.

The shooting caused pandemonium as everyone, including the security and vigilantes in the Secretariat, started running for their lives.

Eyewitness further said that the gunmen drove their car towards the Custom office along the western bypass where they abandoned it, hijacked another vehicle and drove off.

Efforts to get the Office of the Head of Service to comment on the incident proved abortive as everyone clam up when the incident was mentioned.

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Abubakar Muhammad, described the incident as unfortunate adding that the Police is on the trail of the gunmen.

He said that it was because of information given to all police to be on alert and lookout for the vehicle used in committing the crime that made the gunmen abandon the car and hijack another car.

“We have dispatched the information to all our units in the command to be on alert .We are on top of the situation.”

The PPRO cautioned members of the public particularly government officials to desist from moving large sums of money about advising that they should use the electronic banking options.

“There is a kind of vulnerability in moving such large amount of money about. We are advising members of the public and government officials to desist from moving large amounts of money particularly during this period.

“We are encouraging them to use the electronic banking options in doing this. We should not make ourselves vulnerable by moving such large amount of money.”