Major Gen Abubakar: Death Without Answers, And A Government’s Reckless Words For A Reckless Death

By Suleiman Usman Yusuf 

Yesterday, in marking Democracy Day with a piece titled “Inside Out and Upside Down,” I referenced retired Major General Rabe Abubakar, then still in the hands of his abductors, as an example of how unsafe even our most decorated citizens have become.

Today, barely a day later, the Katsina State Government has announced his death while in captivity.

The Katsina State Government announced that retired Major General Rabe Abubakar died “a natural death from complications of diabetes and hypertension” while in the custody of his abductors.

I have one question. What is natural about a man with known health conditions being denied his medication for two weeks? What is natural about a 70 year old retired General, who served this nation with distinction, being dragged through forests, deprived of rest, dignity, and care, until his body simply gave way? Why should we normalize a situation where a man dies in the custody of his abductors, as though he passed away peacefully in his own home, surrounded by family and proper care?

And beyond the question of what is “natural,” there is a more basic one: how does the Katsina State Government even know what killed him? Did the state have access to his body? Was an autopsy conducted to determine the actual cause of death? Or is this account based on information relayed by the very bandits holding him captive? For a government to issue such a definitive medical conclusion, without indicating any of this, is not just insensitive. It is reckless, and it reveals a troubling level of communication incapacitation at the highest levels of state government.

There is nothing natural about dying in agony, in captivity, at the mercy of men who reduced a General of the Nigerian Army to a bargaining chip for livestock and detained associates.

If anything killed General Rabe, it was not diabetes. It was the system that allowed him to be taken in the first place, and the weeks of negotiation, video demands, and “advanced stage” rescue efforts that came to nothing while his body broke down.

Call it what it is. Not a natural death. A death of neglect, abandonment, and a state that has normalized the suffering of its citizens, even its decorated ones, to the point where dying slowly in a bandit’s camp can be filed away as “natural causes,” based on an account no one has bothered to verify.

May he rest in peace. But let us not insult his memory by pretending this was anything but preventable, and let us not allow careless, unverified official statements to become the final word on how he died.

Because that, after all, may be exactly what this press release was designed to achieve: a quick, tidy conclusion, no coroner’s report, no criminal investigation findings, no official inquiry, just a “natural” diagnosis announced within a day of his death, closing the file before it was ever truly opened. No consequences. No answers. No justice. Just another name filed away, until the next tragedy gives us cause to remember it.

We owe General Rabe more than that. And frankly, we owe ourselves more than that too.

Yusuf writes from Abuja. He could be reached via [email protected]