A Troubled Military And Its Country’s Killing Fields

By Tony Erha

When the crocodiles eat their own eggs and shed innocent tears, what would they not do to the frogs? If retired and serving soldiers are left to the pangs of abduction, deadly attacks by sophisticated criminals, what can a lame-duck military do to save ordinary Nigerians? However, this is at the backdrop of accusations that some dishonest security operatives and politicians would prefer the proceeds of crime to saving the lives of Nigerians. And there had been ceaseless accusations and media reports that some government officers and brass hats connive to divert huge budgetary provisions meant for weapons and other upkeep in the fight against insurgency, more so that it is fingered in the failure to torpedo the insurgents.

For Rabe Abubakar, a retired Major General and former spokesman of the Nigerian Army, it is a kidnap and death-in-captivity too grave to be ignored by simple-minded countrymen and a bewildered humanity that ordinarily abhor human killing, maiming and man’s inhumanity to man.

On June 12 (a day again marked in 2026) set aside as Democracy Day, and annual posthumous celebration of Chief MKO Abiola, a martyr symbol of a Nigeria’s democracy experiment, the ever-present news media had been agog that Abubakar died in his kidnapper’s den.

Prior to his death in the hands of the bandits, top soldiers who had been killed included, but not restricted to the former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh (retd.), Maj Gen Hassan, Maj Gen Idris Alkali, AVM Muhammad Maisaka, Maj Gen Richard C. Duru,  Brig Gen Uwem Udokwere, Brig Gen Oseni Braimah, Brig Gen Musa Uba, Lt. Col S.I. Iliyasu, Lt. Col. Umar Farouq, and Lt. Col. Umar Ibrahim Mairiga.

Brig Gen Maharazu Tsiga, Col Joseph Ajanaku and others were lucky to have been rescued from their abductors.

More soldiers and security operatives have been killed and maimed through gruesome armed attacks by the insurgents and criminals that are oftentimes better equipped than Nigerian soldiers and other security men.

The late General Abubakar (rtd), who was kidnapped on May 30, 2026 in Katsina State, with his wife, was said to have had his corpse delivered for burial, by an emboldened and heavily armed bandit group that was not confronted.

Abubakar is only a metaphor for a national calamity that hovers on the head of Nigerian residents, rich or poor, young or old.

But the handling of his kidnapping affairs and efforts to rescue him and his wife was marked by blames and denials.

The abductors were said to have made no specific demand for ransom, other than requesting that the general and his wife be swapped with some of their associates arrested, and cattle earlier seized by security operatives.

But the government of Katsina, Abubakar’s home-state and scene of the kidnap, retorted that they made concerted efforts to rescue the general and his wife, in collaboration with the military authority.

Mohammed Bello Doka, a journalist and blogger, few days into the kidnapping, apparently sounded in premonition that government and the military authority mustn’t fail to save Gen Abubakar from the agony and death in the kidnapper’s den, adding that the military and government should take full blame if he was not rescued alive.

Isyaka Rabe, son of the late General and his kidnapped wife, has put a lie to the story told by the Katsina State Government, that his mother had been released. He also denied as a falsehood the tale spread by the Katsina State Government that his father died of diabetes or hypertension. “My father never had a medical history of the ailment”, he insisted.

When the crocodiles eat their own eggs and shed innocent tears, what would they not do to the frogs? If retired and serving soldiers are left to the pangs of abduction, deadly attacks by sophisticated criminals, what can a lame-duck military do to save ordinary Nigerians?

However, this is at the backdrop of accusations that some dishonest security operatives and politicians would prefer the proceeds of crime to saving the lives of Nigerians.

And there had been ceaseless accusations and media reports that some government officers and brass hats connive to divert huge budgetary provisions meant for weapons and other upkeep in the fight against insurgency, more so that it is fingered in the failure to torpedo the insurgents.

This allegation seems downright when from the theatres of war with the terrors and extremists, serving soldiers, mostly of the junior ranks, randomly use social media to voice out such allegations of budget fleecing and poor treatment of fighting soldiers. The revelations could be demoralizing to soldiers and common sense being that it leads to severe mutinous offence.

Of course, there are conflicting orders emanating from some defense chiefs that fighting soldiers should await orders before shooting at the insurgents, even when soldiers are faced with the risk of being the first to be shot at, if they don’t act.

Could this explain why General Chris Musa (rtd), the defense minister, had strictly ordered a “shoot at sight” of bandits by soldiers? Then, will a defense minister, who gives the order from the flank, be in the war theatres to echo and effectuate it?

The country’s political and defense leadership are inundated with criticisms that the policy of injecting “rehabilitated and repented bandits” into the military is counter-productive, where the so-called repentant militants are caught to be fickle and being active saboteurs from within.

In one of my previous articles of this column, I bewailed the orgy and surges of killings, maiming, kidnapping and other criminalities that have besieged my dear bereaved country. But it’s a paraphrase that “Nigerians and humanity have developed a shock-ability and carefreeness to the numerous killings going on in the country”.

Recently, I was jolted by accounts of a vehicular accident that involved multiple deaths on a proximate expressway in Jaji, Kaduna State. A man asked how many lives were lost. Another woman, with hands akimbo, as if the tragic news didn’t shock her, had courageously asked, “Akwei wata?” Her concern expressed in Hausa was whether “women were involved in the accidental deaths”.

Tacitly reacting to the careless killings and how cheap human lives have become in the country, thus narrowing in from the painful death of General Abubakar in captivity, a heartbroken President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had mourned, somewhat faulting the olive branch steadily given to the so-called “prodigal sons who must be embraced” into the populace where they had killed and maimed everybody’s father, mother, aunt, brother, sister, baby and friend, expecting those offended not to raise a whimper.

“Bandits, kidnappers, and sponsors of terror should now surrender or face the full force of the Nigerian State. These windows of surrender will not remain open forever. And no mercy will be shown to those who trade in the blood of Nigerians” –  so wails, President Tinubu.

The incessant killings of soldiers, retired or serving, who laid down their precious lives, in defense of their nation, is a condemnable heinous crime. But another group of thought sees the killings of retired and serving soldiers, other security operatives and civilians alike, as a lesson for those in national service and others, as the inept practices one may encourage or ignore could turn his albatross.

But most Nigerian soldiers, this time around, are resilient, rolling back the intensity of local and foreign armed groups tearing the country apart.

I assume that the Save Nigeria Group-USA, a not-for-profit organization, based in the United States of America (USA), led by Mr. Stephen Osemwegie, its President, do appreciate such efforts.

The news reaching all is that Defence Minister Christopher Musa is set to receive a meritorious award, on behalf of the soldiers in a security-related event holding on June 23, 2026, in Washington DC.

In the US presidential seat of power neighborhood, where the event holds, President Donald Trump, American and Nigerian policy makers and key leaders, are expected to attend.