The surreality of his abduction was only complicated by the mystery surrounding the identity of his abductors. While some claimed he was whisked away by unknown gunmen who were looking to make some cash off his abduction and later decided to get rid of him for fear of exposure, others asserted that he was abducted by masked security operatives at the behest of one of the governors
On August 2, 2019, popular critic, good governance advocate and political commentator, Abubakar Idris, known as Dadiyata, vanished never to be seen or heard from again. He was abducted from his home in the Barnawa area of Kaduna State. He was abducted at the entrance of his home while he was opening the gate by masked and armed men who had tailed him there. His abduction sparked outrage on social media and there was an aggressive campaign for his release. Dandiyata was a vocal and fierce critic of Nasir El-Rufai, the governor of Kaduna State between 2015 and 2023 and Abdullahi Ganduje, the governor of Kano State during the same period.
The surreality of his abduction was only complicated by the mystery surrounding the identity of his abductors. While some claimed he was whisked away by unknown gunmen who were looking to make some cash off his abduction, others asserted that he was abducted by masked security operatives at the behest of one of the governors whose tirade and scathing criticism were directed at him. When the news of his abduction became public knowledge, the first person the accusatory finger was pointed at was El-Rufai and rightly so. While Dandiyata is known for his unrelenting criticism of the government, especially governors like Ganduje and El-Rufai, his most acerbic and brutal call-outs are reserved for El-Rufai and his government at the moment.
But as years passed by the attention his abduction gained was gradually eclipsed by other topical issues, pointless celebrity drama and superficial social media trends and it was not long before people started giving up on the possibility of him being found alive as patience waned, hope dampened and eventually everyone became resigned to fate. Despite the seeming lack of public interest in his abduction these days, the unspoken consensus about his disappearance is that El-Rufai was behind it and there is enough evidence to support this popular sentiment. For more than five years after Dandiyata went missing, El-Rufai did not refute the heavy and persistent allegation of his involvement in the activist’s disappearance.
But a series of troubling developments in recent weeks has forced people to speak on the matter. During an interview on Arise TV last Wednesday following his failed arrest by the Department of State Security personnel, he was asked about his alleged involvement in the abduction and disappearance of Dandiyata. He denied having a hand in it and that such a question should be directed to Ganduje. He noted that the lecture was majorly critical of the Kano administration rather than the Kaduna government.
He sakd “It was Ganduje that was his problem. I didn’t even know him. We only got the report of Dadiyata’s existence and the fact that he lives in Kaduna State after the family reported to the police that he was abducted as he was returning home in the evening. If anybody is to be asked about the disappearance of Dadiyata, it is the Kano State Government; it has nothing to do with the Kaduna State Government. We didn’t even know he existed,” he said.
But in a swift reaction to El-Rufai’s comment on Dandiyata’s abduction, Ganduje dismissed the allegation, describing it as reckless and spurious. In a statement issued on Saturday by his former Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Muhammad Garba, Ganduje stated that El-Rufai’s claim was a clear attempt to blame someone else for an incident that occurred entirely within Kaduna State.
Ganduje also noted that El-Rufai’s remarks, particularly the reference to an alleged police confession, did not add up as they were replete with inconsistencies. “It is difficult to reconcile a claim of having no prior knowledge of the individual with simultaneously making detailed assertions about who was responsible.” He noted.
For anyone who has followed the Dandiyata’s disappearance saga, El-Rufai’s exoneration of himself from the case is not only unconvincing but disconcerting because the behaviour and utterances of one of his children in the wake of Dandiyata’s abduction do not support his recent claim of innocence. After Dadiyata was abducted and likely killed by those many believed to be security forces in Kaduna, Nasir Elrufai’s own child took to Twitter to justify the abduction and gloat, this cleared the doubt of many who were unsure of their involvement and made them realise that they knew about the abduction and what subsequently happened to him.
And if we are to assume without conceding that there is a modicum of truth in El-Rufai’s claim of Ganduje’s involvement in the matter, it means he knew. And since it happened in his state at a time when they were all in the same party, it indicts him too. It may as well be that both Ganduje and El-Rufai planned and organised the abduction of Dadiyata which then makes the matter all the more unsettling.
Even if the Ganduje indictment has broughta fresh twist to the saga and raises more questions, the truth of the matter is that Dadiyata’s disappearance is a massive blemish on El-Rufai’s reputation and political career, an old ragged cross that he will have to shoulder and carry wherever he goes. No amount of finger-pointing and responsibility-shifting will clear him of any wrongdoing, at least for now, or lessen the weight of the tragic incident on him.
The fact that he is now posturing as a persecuted opposition member does not mean he now gets to unabashedly distort facts and create his own version of reality when those who lived through the tyranny of his government when he was governor are still very much alive. Dadiyata is likely dead by now and the rigmarole about the circumstances surrounding his death only serves to reopen a painful, agonising and traumatising episode for his family and those who he was dear to because nothing El-Rufai and Ganduje say or do now matters.
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