General Rabe Abubakar’s abduction: Time for a rethink.
By Tunde Akande
General Rabe Abubakar and his wife in captivity
General Rabe Abubakar is not the first prominent personality to be abducted by bandits. But he’s come with some special attributes that call for sober reflection among us Nigerians and especially in the north. Before him and his wife, another Major General who was driving from Kogi to Abuja with his wife, was shot, killed and his wife abducted. It is now very apparent that nobody - not even the big politicians in their states - buying massive SUVS are safe, their police escort notwithstanding. Those who have not been abducted have contributed to the ransom payment for a friend or family member.
Rabe Abubakar shone in a photograph of him in his military uniform. He was clean shaven, but when he stood beside his wife, pity the poor aging woman, the General looked every bit a beaten man, one whose courage had left him. The few days he has spent in the God-knows-where bush has left some grey hair on his head. He wasn’t looking like the clean shaven General again. His head was bowed and perhaps because he is a family man with deep respect for his wife or perhaps because he was not as courageous again, he let his wife speak to the nation begging to be helped by the government so that he could be released from captivity.
A General who had seen wars and had suffered, a General who had served the nation meritoriously was now before some ragtag ruffians who will dare not come near to polish his shoes in his heydays now stood not being able to look even into the lens of the phone camera that was being used to record him and his wife. The poor woman whom the General loves so much spoke well being helped by the husband to complete one of two sentences that may be necessary. He wore bathroom slippers. The wife did not appear to have been roughened up but she was not cheerful. Both husband and wife asked the government to sit at a roundtable with the bandits and negotiate security for the beleaguered nation: security with bandits!
Who is General Rabe Abubakar? Did he deserve such humiliation as he goes through now? How did he fall into the hands of untrained thieves who carry AK47s. It wasn’t that the Katsina State government has refused to negotiate with the bandits. The state government pays the bandits so that there will be peace. But how much can the government pay these thieves who receive their ransom in millions? It is good to know this victim of the bandits.
There are two people that know him somehow. Can they give one or two words on his character? One is a retired Major General who was a boss of General Rabe Abubakar in the Army Public Relations Department (APR). He was a Major General when Rabe was a colonel. The other person is a retired NTA Executive Director (News). He had watched General Rabe as he took his military press releases to NTA. The Military Director at APR when Rabe was first a colonel, then promoted Brigadier General said he can confidently judge General Rabe as a very calm and friendly senior officer. He had done his work very diligently and earned his promotion. He retired from the Army as a Major General. The former boss of General Rabe said a question very high in his mind if he had the chance to meet him is why he left his safe home in Kaduna to travel to bandits infested Katsina State. This retired Major General, former boss of General Rabe, is sure the gentleman officer was set up. His driver, who was reportedly shot, escaped, and his whereabouts remain unknown. Fingers are pointing to the driver as the one that possibly gave up his boss.
Muhammad Kachalla, commander of bandits has released a video where he boasted of how his gang had trailed General Rabe until they caught up with him. He said no man, however big or seemingly secure, can escape their watchful eye any longer. Northern elites don’t go to their homesteads again, they all stay at Abuja for fear of being abducted by the bandits. But Abuja too cannot continue to be a fortress to these men of the night who operate in broad daylight. It is commonly reported that Abuja may no longer be safe because there is evidence that the bandits are arriving in the city and may soon begin operations there too. They have carried out daredevil raids in the capital city, such as the raid on Kuje Correctional Facility to set their men free. That raid led to the death of many soldiers.
General Rabe’s other friend, the former ED at NTA gave eloquent testimony to the good disposition of the General: “unassuming, simple, liberal, respectful, friendly, accessible, focused and disposed to ideas that enhance his performance as Defense Spokesperson.”
Why then did Rabe deserve the humiliating treatment in the hands of bandits? Why did they have to track him until they got him like a man who never carried a gun and who knows nothing of combat? Most men are won’t to ask “why me” when they pass through trouble. What could Rabe be experiencing now? What is passing through his mind? “Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth shall be also reap.” (Gal.6:6).
General Rabe was going from Kaduna his home base, to Katsina for the Eid Kabir celebration when he was caught. He is a man of faith. His friend could not find any wrong in him, so why is he reaping trouble? First he didn’t celebrate the Salah he went for, rather he celebrated it in the jungle with wild men who don’t know God. So what happened?
Rabe is like all of us in Nigeria, especially those of us who have had the privilege of education and of serving in some privileged capacities. Perhaps when Rabe served he thought only of himself, his wife, and his children plus maybe a few of his extended family. His ethnicity is Hausa, about the poorest ethnicity in Nigeria as a result of social injustice inflicted on them by another ethnicity who hoodwinked them with the Islamic religion and used that to corner all political and economic positions to itself.
Perhaps as a soldier Rabe couldn’t speak up or perhaps to keep his steady rise in the Army he kept quiet, he didn’t speak out against injustice. Perhaps he turned a blind eye to the unchecked procreation of his Hausa people in the name of religion when he could have denounced and stopped the consequences of untamed population growth. He may not have stolen a kobo from the government but he is part of the decadence that the country is reaping. Perhaps he saw a few people who stole and said nothing about it.
The nation is now hot for everybody and the poor we have all neglected by our tribalism, by our selfishness, by our abuse of religion, the herdsmen we left for decades in the jungle, the almajiris we bred in their millions and left to eat from garbage heaps or send away to long distances to be taught by Imams who are not paid; we see the evil of that system but since the children involved are not ours, we justify the evil by recourse to puerile and self-serving religious scriptures. We turn these young ones on our political or tribal enemies.
The rooster has now come to roost, we are all in trouble, our streets are no longer safe, they take children as young as three and five years into the bush and make all kinds of demands that were not possible before, and they will only release these toddlers after ransom is paid. It’s in Seyi Makinde’s Oyo State.
In our offices while we serve as civil servants or politicians we stole every kobo to ourselves; these kobos meant to build the nation. When we are caught, we engage some smart senior lawyers who argue our cases and obtain our freedom. Yet we know we stole money, or even more. Imams, pastors and traditional medicine practitioners can’t offer help again because they don’t have power again. They have joined the stealing team. We stole so much that the Treasury is dry. It we had taken the Fulani herdsmen out of the forest and put them in school, many would have been ranchers as big business today contributing vitally to the economy. These are the root causes of what we are suffering today. Nobody is safe, our guns are not delivering us, our well trained generals are falling victims of these criminals, our wives and daughters are raped. We elect thieves into our leadership positions because we are thieves also.
General Rabe is suffering humiliation and will have to pay through his nose; it is reported that the bandits have reached to his family which means they are already negotiating ransom. May they spare a little for the General out of his retirement benefit so that he can have something to continue with post-abduction life. His former boss and friend said “we have prayed for his early release.” But let us not only pray, let us as a matter of priority rethink and change our ways. Let’s have a welfare system that will leave nobody behind. Let’s give free and compulsory education to every Nigerian child.
Tunde Akande is both a journalist and a pastor. He earned a Master’s degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos