The tragic fate that befell Major-Gen. Rabe Abubakar (rtd), a former Director of Defence Information, is to say the least, inglorious. Specifically, that a VIP (Very Important Personality) in the mould of a two-star General could just die like ‘the scum of the earth,’ without any consequences some 11 days after, is emblematic of how perilous and precarious the security maelstrom plaguing the country has become.
The contradictions that have attended the manner of his death and the release of his body for burial are even more odious. The entire scenario is an embarrassment to the otherwise towering image of the nation’s military, reputed to be one of the strongest in Africa.
The 61-year-old former Defence spokesman and his wife were abducted by rampaging bandits on May 30, 2026 along the Marabar Musawa–Kafinsoli road in Matazu Local Government Area of Katsina State. His vehicle was ambushed by the heavily armed marauders while traveling to attend a wedding.
They were believed to have been abducted by a ring run by Kachalla Muhammad Fulani, a notorious bandit kingpin and kidnapper, who operates across the North-West and has been a terror to communities in Matazu, Musawa, Kankia and Charanchi local government areas of Katsina State as well as parts of Kano State.
The kidnappers reportedly demanded the release of three of their detained associates and the return of livestock allegedly seized during security operations.
Katsina and Zamfara have particularly been riven by banditry for years now. Terror gangs, under notorious kingpins, are believed to have entrenched control over large swathes of territories in these states, running rings notorious for orchestrating mass abductions for huge ransoms and attacking local communities. Attempts to strike peace deals with the highly capricious and snippy militants have only served to embolden them instead.
While concerned Nigerians, as usual, fulminated against the high profile abduction, urging the authorities to rescue the General, who hailed from the Batsari Local Government Area of the state, and his wife without further delay, nothing was heard about him until days to his death when a viral video released by his abductors showed him and his wife in captivity alongside other kidnap victims. The video showed that he had an apparent injury in the left leg.
From that point, the kidnap saga began to assume farcical hues. The story of the General, who was the Director of Defence Information from 2015 to 2017, became wrapped in subterfuges, twists and turns.
First, on June 12, the Katsina State government announced General Abubakar’s death in captivity, attributing his demise to natural causes due to complications from diabetes and hypertension.
“The retired General died a natural death from complications of diabetes and hypertension,” the Katsina State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Nasiru Mu’azu, had told reporters.
Mu’azu expressed regrets about his death despite what he called “the relentless and concerted efforts” of both the state government and various security agencies to secure his safe release.
But the General’s family spurned the government’s claim about the cause of death. To them, that claim is no more than a piece of yarn. One of the General’s children, Isyaka Abubakar, said his father had no history of either disease.
He told a news medium that reports attributing the former military spokesman’s death to diabetes were not true. Some people, according to him, canvassed the possibility that the late General died from a snake bite, judging from the last video released by the kidnappers. But he personally believed that only God knows the actual cause of death.
The late military officer’s daughter, Adda Abubakar, corroborated her brother that their father did not suffer from diabetes. She too shared the surmise that a snake bite might have caused his death.
Second, both online and traditional media became awash with the story that General Rabe’s heavily armed abductors had willingly brought his body to town and handed it over to some government officials for burial. According to the saga, his widow, was released along his body.
But discernible eyes immediately began to shred the apparently factitious story. The photo that purportedly illustrated the story, showing how the purported casket, draped in the nation’s green-white-green flag, was handed over was patently AI-generated!
Again, the General’s son, Isyaka, punched a big hole into the claim, saying that the family remained uncertain about how the body was recovered.
He said: “When I announced the time for my father’s funeral prayer, many people began asking how the body was recovered. I told them I did not know and that they should direct such questions to the government”. He added: “I myself want to know how the body was recovered without rescuing her(the widow).”
Isyaka also dismissed reports that the late military officer’s widow had regained freedom. “Take it from me, our mother is still in captivity. She has not been released,” he clarified.
Shortly after this claim was dispelled, information hit the news waves that the woman, who was purportedly released earlier alongside her late husband’s body, had now been rescued from the kidnappers’ den.
The fresh information revealed that troops had to engage the bandits holding her in a fiarce gun duel before she could be wrenched free.
An online medium, however, published two accounts about how the General’s body was recovered. The first account was allegedly given by a security source, who reportedly claimed that the abductors got in touch with the military to send an ambulance, shorn of security escort, to a location near Karaduwa bridge, where the body was reportedly handed over.
But the other account that gained greater traction was that the body was found by locals near a sawmill in Karaduwa, where it was dumped by the kidnappers. The locals later discovered the body and notified security personnel, who came, identified the remains and picked them up in an ambulance escorted by the army.
However, according to the account relayed to some people by the General’s widow herself, Hajiya Amina, who is said to be recuperating after her ordeal in captivity, her husband never had diabetes or hypertension. She said he was hale and hearty when they were kidnapped, adding that he died in her arms.
She corroborated the surmise that the abductors confirmed to her that her husband was bitten by a snake when she alerted them about his swollen left leg. She said the militants attempted to treat the swollen leg with mashed leaves but his condition deteriorated till he gave up the ghost.
According to the widow, the abductors became very jittery and agitated at the death of their high profile hostage. In a bid to avoid confrontation with troops over the tragic incident, she said they hastily mounted their motorcycles, carrying her and the body as they fled their location, leaving behind other kidnap victims.
As they moved, the sounds of gunfire from advancing troops of Operation Fansan Yamma became discernible. They then fled in different directions ostensibly to avoid confronting the approaching soldiers. She said the bandit carrying her on his motorcycle became disoriented, stopped, dropped her, shot her on the thigh and fled.
The troops bumped into her in the pool of her own blood. They were in a celebratory mood when they discovered that she was General Rabe’s widow. It was from there they picked her and conveyed her to the hospital.
The Defence Headquarters, which explained that it refrained from commenting earlier on the kidnap saga in order not to jeopardize efforts of security agencies to rescue General Rabe and his wife, gave its own account of how Hajiya Amina was rescued.
According to a statement issued by the Director of Defence Information, Major-Gen. Samaila Uba, last Monday, the operation followed intensified search-and-rescue efforts by troops of Operation Fansan Yamma. Uba said troops made contact with the kidnappers at Tunga Village during sustained offensive operations against criminal elements in the area.
He added: “…In the course of the encounter, the bandits shot Mrs Abubakar before abandoning her and fleeing due to the overwhelming pressure from advancing troops.
“Mrs Abubakar was immediately evacuated and is currently receiving medical attention at a military hospital, where she is responding to treatment.”
From the account of General Rabe’s widow, the kidnappers did not project any aura of invincibility. They were obviously disoriented the moment they got the whiff of troops’ invasion of their camp to rescue the General’s widow. They must have been tipped off by the moles among the troops, a sabotage theory that security agencies are currently investigating.
The activities of moles leaking information such as movement of troops and vital intels to non-state actors have been one of the dangerous drawbacks to the anti-terror war. They have resulted in many ghoulish ambushes, often leading to avoidable fatalities. Until they are weeded out of the system, they will continue to drag down the wheel of progress.
Now, the puzzle is the insufferable tardiness in the whole rescue efforts by the military. Why did the troops not carry out the invasion of the abductors’ den earlier? Why did they dawdle till General Rabe gave up the ghost?
It is befuddling that the military suddenly seemed to have discovered its guts and gusto after the death of General Rabe. As goofy as it sounds, it appeared as if it was the tragedy the military high command was waiting for to be woken up from lethargy.
If the same overwhelming firepower with which the troops advanced towards the abductors’ camp to rescue the General’s wife had been applied when the General was still alive, he might perhaps have survived the ordeal.
This leads us to the incongruity of our military’s dual image as a gallant, respected force that garners laurels and accolades in peace-keeping and combat operations abroad and a barely-getting-along force back honked, struggling to contain a band of villaneous ragtag armies of criminals, holed up in vast forests, killing, maiming, and pillaging Nigerians. They swoop on communities and operate for hours unchallenged.
In many cases, even state actors negotiate with them and strike peace deals with them, only for them to break faith and return to terrorise the same communities for which the deals were struck.
As it has been revealed several times, the greatest strength of theses daredevils are the miscellany of powerful state and non-state actors backing and funding them. They are so audacious that they are now appearing online, showing faces, prancing and dishing out threats without being rounded up and dealt with to deter them, in this era of sophisticated technology!
Are their sponsors ghosts? Are they untouchable? Why are the authorities behaving as if they are helpless, with all the executive powers they wield and the instruments of coercion at their disposal? Something is definitely wrong somewhere. And this is highly oddly and troubling.
