Military launches rescue for ex-defence spokesman kidnapped in Katsina

Armed men abducted retired Maj. Gen. Rabe Abubakar and his wife along the Matazu axis of the Katsina-Matazu road in Matazu Local Government Area of Katsina State, leaving their driver with a gunshot wound before the vehicle was later recovered by police. The military said it had begun efforts to secure the couple’s release, turning the case into a stark measure of how deeply insecurity has spread across north-west Nigeria.

The incident was first made public by former senator Babafemi Ojudu, who said he got the information from retired Brig. Gen. Sagir Musa. Military spokesman Gen. Michael Onoja later told the BBC that efforts were under way to rescue the couple and track down the captors. Reports attributed the abduction to suspected armed bandits, and said the victims were taken to an unknown location.

Abubakar’s abduction carried added weight because of his long public role in the armed forces. He served as Director of Defence Information between 2015 and 2017, making him one of the more recognisable military spokesmen at a time when the country was already battling insurgency and widening security failures. His kidnapping now places a former voice of the Defence Headquarters inside the same danger zone that has long threatened civilians on Katsina’s roads.

The case also exposes the gap between how the state responds when violence touches a senior figure and how it often leaves ordinary people to absorb the same brutality in silence. The International Organization for Migration has described north-west Nigeria as facing a multi-dimensional crisis shaped by banditry and kidnappings. In April 2026, IOM flash reports for Katsina recorded bandit attacks that killed and displaced people across the state, underscoring how routinised such violence has become.

The scale is visible in the numbers. The ICIR reported in January that Katsina had lost more than 1,500 civilians to banditry over five years, while Nigeria Watch said the state recorded 681 crime-related deaths in 2025, among the highest in the country. Against that backdrop, the abduction of a retired general is not an exception that proves the rule. It is the rule made visible, a reminder that the roads of Katsina remain perilous and that state capacity in the north-west is still struggling to keep pace with the violence.