A report monitored on Channels Television, Sunday, said that the Department of State Services, DSS, has arrested five persons, including two Nigeriens, suspected to be arms couriers to the dare-devil gunmen who attacked St Mary’s Catholic School in Papiri village, Niger State, on November 21, 2025, and abducted about 300 students and staff.
Quoting impeccable sources, the television station disclosed that a large cache of arms was among the items recovered from the suspects. The arms included: 15 AK rifles and 1,434 rounds of live ammunition.
The report named the suspects as: Yusuf Mohammed, aka Bature, who is on the list of wanted members of the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, aka the Boko Haram terror organisation, and his accomplice, Mubarak Ibrahim.
According to the report, the men were arrested on the Zaria-Kaduna highway while on their way to collect a consignment of arms for their commanders. And that a follow-up operation led to the arrest of Goni Ibrahim, an international arms courier from the Diffa Region of Niger Republic. Arrested alongside Ibrahim was one Tukur Sani, who was identified as his accomplice
The security sources disclosed that both men were arrested in an unmarked blue car with 15 AK-103 rifles, 15 magazines, and 1,434 rounds of 7.62 mm live ammunition.
And few days after the arrests, the security sources added told Channels Television that luck ran out of yet another member of the arms courier syndicate, identified as Alhaji Adamu, aka Gado Banufe. He was nabbed in Yauri, Kebbi State. The report said Adamu plies his evil trade around the Kebbi axis, supplying arms.
The security sources disclosed that preliminary investigations had established that the five men served as arms couriers to the gunmen who carried out the November 2025 attacks on the Catholic boarding school in Papiri.
Dozens of gunmen on motorcycles had, in the wee hours of November 21, 2025, stormed the Catholic primary and secondary boarding school, rounding up students and teachers at gunpoint.
While about 50 of the children managed to escape in the chaos that greeted the attack, over 250 others were marched for days into the Kainji Lake Reserve forest.
After slightly over a month after the attack, on December 21, 2025, the Federal Government and Niger State officials confirmed the rescue and safe return of the remaining 130 captives, with officials stating that not a single pupil remained in captivity.
