The hair-raising footage of a visibly terrified couple and their infant daughter, with a gun pointed at their heads by a bandit, was certainly not what one would love to watch just before going to bed. But unfortunately, that was the image on our minds when some of us slept yesterday.
The husband, Ahmad Abubakar Zakka, has been identified in reports as a resident of Alrahus Estate in Millennium City in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State. He was kidnapped on October 5, 2026, alongside his wife and daughter from their home, located in the area which has recently become a kidnapping hotspot.
Everything in that short video was cruel, animalistic, degrading and inhuman, at the same time. The dehumanizing treatment meted out to that family in the full glare of the world is enough provocation to move a country to action. Even more broadly, the video is enough to push Nigeria into launching an all-out war against these syndicates.
The sight of the man wearing what was, no doubt, a woman’s blouse and boxer shorts, clutching their unclothed infant daughter while his wife sat covered in a hijab and pajama pants, suggests that the family was hurriedly seized as they prepared for bed. Obviously, the criminals did not give them the opportunity to get properly dressed before corralling them into the bush.
The man’s right hand was visibly swollen, apparently from beatings by their abductors. More than one victim of kidnapping has painfully recounted how captives are subjected to rounds of physical abuse, including clubbing with sticks, over the first few hours or days of their abduction. Their captors apply this method to try to “break and soften” them, making them suitable for the chilling videos they record and send to their families. Such footage is calculated to shock and terrify relatives into rapidly raising ransom payments.
But yesterday, we saw that the injuries victims sustain during beatings can also serve the purpose of torture. It was the highest point of cruelty when one of the kidnappers repeatedly poked at the man’s inflamed hand with the muzzle of his rifle.
The family members were taken between 11pm and midnight on that fateful Monday and a ransom has been placed on their heads. Maintaining a composure that almost concealed his predicament, the man pleaded, “They want N300 Million from us. Please, help us.” He made the appeal while an AK-47 dangled dangerously near his forehead.
As though the little baby were aware of the horrible situation around them, she gave a brief, sharp cry the moment the cocked gun was swung from her father’s right hand, to his head, barely grazing her face. That was an absolutely numbing sight. Any little misstep or an unsteady move in trying to adjust his grip on the weapon – especially since the bandit wielded the rifle with only one hand – could cause an accidental tug on the trigger and result in an unspeakable outcome.
But bandits are not known to be emotional. The cold, calculated self-interests that drive them to take lives do not care who they kill. In recent raids, these gangs have killed pregnant women who could not keep up with the grueling march back to their camps. Many Nigerian forests are littered with the remains of kidnapped victims who died from starvation, torture or outright executions as they waited for their freedom. The corpses are a testament to these brutes who have been rampaging in parts of Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Kogi states and recently, Kano.
The Kaduna family did not kill anyone to warrant being threatened with death. They were only getting ready to go to sleep in their home that fateful night when criminals broke in and took them away. They had not been told they committed any offence. All the threats, the cruel exposure to the elements and a loaded gun were mechanisms for extracting ransom.
Recalling his experience in the hands of bandits after he was kidnapped from his home in Bungudu town in Zamfara, the chairman of Bungudu Local Government in Zamfara, Nura Umar Abdullahi, who spent roughly two months in captivity, stated that he left behind about 200 other kidnapped people where he was held.
The Nigerian government must act immediately to bring this Kaduna family and all citizens held across various forests back home. Keeping every Nigerian safe is a much greater national duty than driving in long convoys and junketing all over the world.
The government and security agencies cannot afford to treat this footage as another passing internet trend. The state must deploy actionable intelligence to locate the Alrahus Estate victims before it is too late. The time for tactical inertia is over. It is time to flush out these criminals and permanently reclaim our forests.
- Sani is based in Abuja
