The Lagos State Police Command said it has arrested Misturah Bada, a 26-year-old housewife, and her accomplice, Adedamola Daniel, for allegedly staging her own kidnapping and extorting N2.5 million from her husband, who lives in South Africa.
The suspects were arrested by operatives of the command special squad over offences bordering on false kidnapping, conspiracy and extortion.
In a statement signed by Abimbola Adebisi, the state police spokesperson, the case began on November 24 when the command received a distress call from Bada, who reported that his wife had been kidnapped by armed men demanding a ransom of N10 million, later reduced to N3 million.
“A sum of N2.5 million was subsequently paid by the husband, an innocent Nigerian resident in South Africa, yet the supposed kidnappers refused to release the victim,” the statement reads.
Following the report, the command deployed both human and technical resources to track the alleged kidnappers.
Bada was later “released and reunited with her family” and subsequently invited for debriefing.
According to the statement, during questioning, she claimed that “she was kidnapped by six armed men driving a silver Toyota Venza”, taken to their hideout and dispossessed of her iPhone 12 Pro Max.
She also stated that the ransom paid by her husband was first transferred into her bank account before being handed over to the kidnappers.
However, police said further investigation revealed “several inconsistencies” in her account.
“On 3 December 2025, operatives arrested Adedamola Daniel in the Ede area of Osun State. A SIM card used to register the WhatsApp account through which ransom negotiations were conducted was recovered from him,” the statement reads.
“During interrogation, he confessed that the suspect Misturah Bada had requested the use of his SIM card to open the WhatsApp account used for the ransom negotiations and that he provided the OTP sent to his line, which enabled her to successfully operate the account.”
The police said Bada was later confronted with the findings and “admitted to faking her own kidnapping in order to extort money from her husband”.
“Further investigation led to the recovery of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, which Mrs. Bada had earlier claimed was with the kidnappers. The phone was recovered from Yusuf Sodiq, aged 34, who admitted that he purchased the phone from her at the rate of ₦380,000, having been warned not to insert any SIM card into it at the time,” the statement added.
The police said investigation into the case is ongoing and that Bada and her accomplice will be charged to court upon its conclusion.
