Obadiah Ibrahim was a Nigerian citizen. He probably had plans for 2023. We certainly didn’t have Ibrahim in mind when we wrote last week about the last Christmas for Nigerians – governments, businesses, institutions and individuals alike. Didn’t live to actually witness. He was kidnapped and murdered in Kaduna. The same Kaduna governor, Nasir El-Rufay, was recently shamelessly nominated by the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) party’s presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinub at London’s Chatham House to show how they will secure Nigeria. We talked about how we planned. If your party wins the presidential election next month.
In our country, Obadiah Ibrahim citizens did not exist outside the narrow confines of family, friends, community and work colleagues. His death is just another statistic. It doesn’t matter that he was the victim of another kidnapper and murderer in Kaduna. Kaduna is a famous crocodile city and now devours crocodiles. Ibrahim’s kidnapping and murder were not uncommon, but they were troubling. And given that his death occurred around the same time Governor El-Rufay was busy masturbating in the UK. It poignantly represents the legacy that should be built by the successor.
Ibrahim’s kidnapping and gruesome murder are told as told by those involved. The brief was that Ibrahim said he was kidnapped in Kaduna in early December 2022. The kidnappers were paid a ransom of N3 million. But the kidnappers weren’t satisfied. They requested other valuables, including cell phone recharge cards, which were duly delivered. Not enough yet. They murdered Ibrahim and demanded his family pay him 10 million Naira to retrieve his remains. Obadiah’s brother told the story to reporters only after eliciting a promise from an interviewer that he (picture of Kefas) would never be used to illustrate the story because he would risk his own life. He said: He was kidnapped when his younger brother came from Abuja. It wasn’t. My brother worked for a company that services GSM masts. And their coverage is from Kaduna to Jele and Kubacha.
“They were servicing the masts every month. It was the place where I was killed.
“After the kidnapping, the bandits called. They called my brother, who is a lawyer. They asked him if he knew he was with me. My brother said yes and asked what we were going to do They said it was a matter of money They spoke Hausa but their Hausa was Fulani Hausa was the language.
My brother told them we had no money. They insulted him and hung up. We weren’t the ones who negotiated with them. There was a negotiator. Only once did they call my brother. They also called one of his office colleagues. He recorded their conversation. Whenever they called him, he recorded them. Sometimes he narrated conversations. There was also a period when they played them for us to hear. Sometimes they gave his brother a call to talk to us. He implored us to find a way to make money. They initially demanded N200 million.
We told them we had no money. They became N5 million. From N5 million they asked us how much we had. We negotiated and told them we have N3,120,000. A few days later they said they should bring us the money. They also asked for a N50,000 recharge card (of two service providers). I sent money and a card. ”
The story of the bloody negotiations was long and tortuous. Negotiations were sometimes face-to-face, sometimes over the phone, and were the same GSM that required registration, and biometrics were obtained by the government. The same phone line had been used freely by bandits for weeks to extort ransom money from the families of kidnap victims. But back to the gory tales and excerpts of Buhari’s legacy. The kidnapper then asked for three motorcycles of the type used by Boko Haram or Irin na Boko Haram.
The family was able to purchase one for NGN 800,000. “They promised to release my brother the next day. rice field. They promised to release him when he returned. Thursday morning they told us he was dead. How can I get the corpse? They said I should give N10 million. They said they couldn’t work for us for free.
They even swore by saying “Allah za mu kawo si” (We swear to Allah that we will bring the corpse). That’s when Obadiah’s family lost him, lost N3 million, “invested” in N50,000 phone charging cards, N800,000 in Boko Haram-spec motorcycles (given the brand name), and emotionally charged. This is one of the pictures of a country where Buhari boasts of having kept his promise to secure us. This is a state where the governor plays a proxy role in how presidential candidates provide security on a national scale. Arrogance should have another meaning.
The disgrace of Buhari lounging on the couch, ostensibly gnashing his teeth after a banquet out of poor people’s money, as was said of his wife Aisha (who was outraged and ordered the student imprisoned) pictures and study courses at foreign universities on how not to rule a country, presidents still sleep a night when the minimum wage is N30,000, and a medium-sized chicken for N10,000 at last year’s Christmas and New Year celebrations. Sold. About 133 million Nigerians are reported to be poor in many dimensions. Unemployment is not allowed. Inflationary pressures are relentless. Anxiety is rampant, as reflected in Citizen Obadiah’s story above. Industrial-scale theft of crude oil at wellheads is rampant. Domestic and external debt is suffocating the country. Nigeria’s central bank governor attempted to become president during his tenure. The same central bank governor went missing while evading arrest by the secret police on allegations that he was financing terrorists. If even after the Gulf States provided us with a list of suspects, they failed to name and prosecute Nigerian terrorism financiers. And the corruption in front of us is a daily occurrence. It speaks to Buhari’s disdain for Nigerians. On the eve of his departure from the office he treated as a trophy, he roamed the streets attacking Nigerians who stayed up late about how he had fulfilled all his election promises to fight and fight insecurity. I’m here. Corruption and economic growth. If he stops saying that he did his best in about eight years in office, we can accept that, recognizing that his best was a disaster. To say that it has taken us to a better place than it has taken us is terribly insensitive and terrible. And he knows it, yet he lives in denial.
