Juliana Francis
Twenty-year-old, Ibrahim Abdullahi, who was arrested for murdering his elder brother, has blamed his father for making him take to crime.
According to Ibrahim, he belonged to a gang that specialised in robbery, kidnapper and cattle rustling. He confessed to have hired assassins to kill his brother, Kadade.
THE CONFESSION
My father is married to four wives and has many children. I don’t know what is special about Kadade that our father wouldn’t ever take care of his other children without rubbing it on our faces that Kadade was special. I was sent to Arabic school in Kaduna, while only Kadade attended primary and secondary schools. My father said it was not necessary for other of his children to go to school, because he wanted every one of us to become farmers. And yet, he was always the first person to insult and call us illiterates, saying we couldn’t speak English Language. How can I speak English Language when my father did not send me to school? I only learnt how to cultivate corn and rear cows. I had to get married to convince him that I was old enough to handle responsibilities. As soon as I got married, my father gave me only 20 cows and two plots of land. The reason I carried out the killing of my blood brother with the help of my gang members was because our father trusted my late brother much more than he trusts me. It is also because of the sum of N1, 700,000, which our father realised from selling his cattle. The money was kept with my brother.
Since my father refused to grant me easy access to money, I decided to join Hassan’s gang. We started by stealing rams, goats and sheep. When Hassan was able to get enough AK47 rifles, we started cattle rustling. He also introduced me to one Abdulahi who lives in the forest. The man made us promised to start kidnapping people who are rich in our community. Whenever we collected ransom, we give him certain percentage. I sold three of my cows at N100, 000 each to get enough money to marry and take care of my new wife. I never kept the stolen cows because my father would have noticed and accused me of stealing. Most of the people that we kidnapped were Fulani cattle farmers; people we knew. We got to know the very rich ones whenever they come to sell their cows. When we kidnap them, we ask them to submit the sales of that day. It is only a few times that we entered the Kaduna Zaria Expressway to abduct motorists. We tried as much as possible to avoid operating along expressways because there are many stronger gangs in charge of those areas. Sometimes, these gangs, when they need more hands for an operation, invite us.
The plan to murder Kadade was born after he sold some cows and made N1.7million. It was a good deal and when Kadade returned home, he made so much noise about it, causing our father to grin with pride. We expected father to share the money but he asked Kadade to take it to the bank the following day. On that day, I was very financially down, so I asked my father to help me with some money. He insulted me and then told me to learn to be responsible like Kadade. I become bitter and immediately called Haruna and told him about the money, which was in our house. I told them to come that night and to make sure they killed my brother. Although I now regret my action, but then I thought that his death would make my father to allow me to control some of his businesses. At about 12am, five of them came and knocked on my window, which was a signal to let me know that they were around. They searched everywhere, including my room and they killed my brother. My father was devastated; I consoled and told him it was Allah’s wish.
In the morning, I went to the bush to meet the gang and they told me that it was only N300, 000 they found with my brother. I collected N100,000 as my share since I was the person that brought the job. It was later when the villagers heard about the death of my brother that we got to know that Kadade kept part of the money in the village market safe. I was surprised when police came back some weeks later with Hassan to arrest me.
First Published 2020
