General Rabe Is Dead: Who is next, and how do we know he died of natural causes?, by Mohammed Bello Doka
The video arrived as all modern atrocities do: grainy, vertical, undeniable. A retired Major General of the Nigerian Army, a man who once commanded the very institutions now failing him, sits on the forest floor with a swollen leg. He is surrounded by men who, by every law of military science, should never have been able to touch him. Ragtag bandits. Criminals with AK-47s and rocket launchers, men who have studied the Nigerian state and found it wanting.
That video is not merely a tragedy. It is a strategic verdict. It is the enemy’s assessment of our national weakness, broadcast for all to see. And today, June 13, 2026, that verdict has been executed. The Katsina State Government has confirmed that Major General Rabe Abubakar died in captivity from complications of diabetes and hypertension.
But here is the question that every Nigerian must demand an answer to. Who said the General died of natural causes? Which doctor examined his body in that forest and reached that conclusion? Who told the Katsina State Government that he died of hypertension and diabetes when he was sitting on the forest floor with a swollen leg, bound by men who had no interest in his survival? The state expects us to accept a medical diagnosis delivered by bandits through a government press release. No autopsy. No independent examination. No physician who can swear under oath that they touched his body and drew blood and measured his blood pressure before he took his last breath.
This is not medicine. This is convenience.
The first principle of strategy, as articulated by the ancient Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu, is that the good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. The Nigerian state has done the opposite. It has positioned its most vulnerable citizens, including its retired generals, directly in the path of defeat. And in doing so, it has signalled to every bandit, every kidnapper, and every enemy of this nation that the ultimate centre of gravity—the trust between the state and those who serve it—is undefended.
The Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, in his seminal work On War, wrote that no one starts a war without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve and how he intends to conduct it. The bandits holding General Rabe understood this instinctively. Their objective was not merely ransom. It was demonstration. It was the public humiliation of a military that cannot protect its own. They watched the news. They saw who had fallen from grace. They understood that in Nigeria today, protection is not a right earned by service but a privilege attached to the furniture of office. The moment a general retires, the moment a governor leaves office, the security detail vanishes. The convoy disappears. And the man becomes just another Nigerian. Just another target.
This is the bitter truth that no one in power wants to speak. The security apparatus of this country is designed to protect the powerful only while they hold power. Watch how it works. A governor travels with a convoy of dozens of vehicles. A minister cannot step out without a small army of security personnel. But the moment that office is vacated, the protection evaporates. They are left to fend for themselves on the same dangerous roads, under the same sky where bandits now operate with impunity. The protection was never about the person. It was about the position. And once the position is gone, the person becomes prey.
Sun Tzu warned that the consummate leader cultivates the moral law and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success. What moral law remains when a man who gave decades of his life to the military dies in a forest, unattended, while his captors negotiate with a state that seems incapable of decisive action? What discipline exists when a retired Major General can be abducted from a road in Katsina State on May 30, 2026, and no overwhelming force is dispatched to burn the forest down?
The answer is none. And the bandits know it.
Clausewitz observed that war is the province of chance, and that the actor in war constantly finds things different from his expectations. But the failure here is not chance. It is structural. In April 2026, the Ministry of Defence inaugurated strategic committees to strengthen veterans’ welfare, promising to move from policy intentions to actionable implementation. In January 2026, the Minister inaugurated another committee to reposition the Nigerian Legion and deploy veterans to secure ungoverned spaces. Meanwhile, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry pushed a Veterans Welfare Fund bill through the National Assembly, seeking to establish a comprehensive framework for healthcare, housing, and employment.
Committees. Bills. Inaugurations. And in the forests of Katsina, a general dies.
The gap between policy and protection is where hope goes to die. The bandits are not waiting for committees to submit their recommendations. They are watching. They see the hesitation. They see the weakness. And they draw the only conclusion that any rational predator would draw. Nigeria is soft. Hit them. Take their generals. Take their money. Take their pride. They will not fight back. They will only talk.
Sun Tzu wrote that the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy. The Nigerian state has done neither. It has left its veterans exposed, its retired generals vulnerable, and its citizens unprotected. And now the enemy has struck at the heart of the military’s honour. If a Major General can be taken and left to die of treatable medical conditions in captivity, what hope is there for the private? For the civilian? For the former political office holder who no longer commands a convoy?
Clausewitz spoke of the moral forces in war, stating that the physical are almost no more than the wooden handle, whilst the moral are the noble metal, the real bright-polished weapon. The moral force of the Nigerian military is being shattered in real time. Every serving officer watching that video is asking the same question. When I retire, will the same army that I served forget me? Every soldier on the front lines is wondering whether the state that sends them into battle will remember them when they are no longer useful.
The Prussian general Von der Goltz, quoted by Clausewitz, offered a chilling warning: The statesman who, knowing his instrument to be ready, and seeing war inevitable, hesitates to strike first is guilty of a crime against his country. The war against banditry is inevitable. The enemy has declared itself. They have taken a general. They have killed him through neglect. And the state hesitates. It negotiates. It forms committees. It offers condolences.
But who is next? That is the question that should keep every retired officer awake tonight. That is the question that should haunt every political office holder planning to leave power. And that is the question that should terrify every citizen who has ever believed that service to this nation earns protection from this nation. Because if a Major General can be taken and the state cannot rescue him, cannot retrieve his body, cannot produce a single doctor who examined him before declaring he died of natural causes, then what chance does any other Nigerian have?
Condolences do not deter predators. Bullets do. Resolve does. The visible, unmistakable proof that the Nigerian state will hunt down anyone who touches its veterans, retired or otherwise, with a fury that makes the forest burn.
General Rabe is dead. The system failed him. That failure is not a malfunction. It is a design flaw. The system is working exactly as it was built: to protect the powerful only while they hold power, and to abandon everyone else to the wolves. If that system does not change, then every Nigerian should know the truth. There is no hope for the citizens. There is only the waiting. The waiting for your turn to become General Rabe.
The question hanging over this nation today is not whether the bandits will strike again. They will. The question is whether the Nigerian state will finally understand that a nation that cannot protect its veterans has no right to expect the loyalty of its citizens. And that a military that cannot rescue its own has already lost the most important battle: the battle for the trust of the people it claims to defend.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via bellodoka82@gmail.com
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