Abubakar Idris, a Kaduna State social critic popularly known as Dadiyata, disappeared in August 2019 and the question of his whereabouts is yet to be unanswered. The oppressive state government headed by Nasir el-Rufai has been repeatedly accused of being responsible for his disappearance. In a recent twist of events, el-Rufai personally denied responsibility and said: “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.” Abdullahi Ganduje was the governor of Kano at the time.

Despite public pressure and demands for accountability, the authorities have shown little interest in investigating the case. In the midst of the blame game, fresh details have been made public as Muhammed Musa, who is said to be a former aide to former Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle, now Minister of State for Defence, said via his Facebook page on Thursday that Officers Hussaini Gimba and Hassan Gimba, who are twins, detained him at joint security task force Operation Yaki’s office in Kaduna State in 2021 where he met with Dadiyata. He provided more chilling details in this interview with FIJ’s Sodeeq Atanda on Friday.

Tell me about yourself

My name is Musa Muhammed Kamarawa and [I was] born in Kamarawa Village in the Isa Local Government Area of Sokoto State. I grew up all in Sokoto. Alhaji Attahiru Dalhatu Bafarawa, a former governor of Sokoto, is my uncle. I had my primary and secondary school education in the state. I also attended the Usman Danfodiyo University (UDUS) where I studied Chemistry. I later became deeply involved in business and politics.

You said you were an aide to former Zamfara State Governor Bello Matawalle. Tell me how you came to know him.

Politically, I knew Matawalle before he became governor. I had a good relationship with him. We always spoke by phone. He was my man. After the court declared him winner of the election, he promised to end banditry in the state. He initiated peace meetings with terror groups and their leaders. One time, I met with him at the Government House in Zamfara where he was discussing with security and traditional rulers on how to end terrorist activities.

All security agencies were there. After the meeting, I told him I was a victim of terrorism. I narrated how we visited our village and bandits kidnapped me. I spent more than 33 days before my family paid a ransom. He was surprised.

From there, he directed the Secretary to the State Government to appoint me as his senior special adviser. My duty was to mediate between the government and the bandits. I said, ‘Mr. Governor, I would not do that work. Let’s continue with our normal political relationship.’ The governor told me, ‘Musa, this work, we will do it together for the sake of God.’

I then accepted the appointment conditionally. My conditions were that, ‘Your Excellency, don’t ever give me any amount of money to deliver to bandits. Don’t ever send me to any forest because I am not going there. Don’t ever send me to collect ammunition or arms from bandits’. He accepted and I assumed office.

I built a good relationship with security agencies. I had the contact details of the Director of Operations of DSS [Department of State Service], Director of DSS in Zamfara and Sokoto, Commissioner of Police, AIG Ibrahim Lamorde at the FIB [Federal Investigation Bureau]. Lamorde even bought five motorcycles which we gave local vigilantes so that when they monitor bandits’ movements, they gather useful intelligence and pass it to me and I would pass the information to him.

What broke down your relationship with Matawalle?

The problem was that some group of people wanted to become millionaires in the insecurity sector. So, I became a threat to them because my advice to the governor every time was that he should not give bandits any money because they would use it to acquire more weapons. These people succeeded in pushing me out of his cabinet.

All those notorious bandits, Bello Turji, Ado Alieru, Halilu Sububu and others who surrounded Zamfara and Sokoto were always at the government house. They came through my office for meetings with the governor — not in my house, not in their houses — but at the Zamfara State Government House. I had no personal business with them. Everything we did occurred in the presence of security agencies and the governor.

One of the bandits requested a Toyota Hilux from the government to convey their wounded members to hospital for treatment and the governor accepted. After the meeting, I advised him against releasing the vehicle. He said he could not reverse his promise.

I rushed to AIG Lamorde and DSS’s Director of Operations to call the governor’s attention not to release the vehicle. Against my efforts, the governor delivered the Hilux.

Despite the governor’s favourable decisions, the bandits would still go to schools and kidnap students and the governor would still pay a ransom. For instance, I am aware that students of the Government Secondary School, Jangebe, were kidnapped and the worst part of it is that Hussaini Gimba and Hassan Gimba, the twin brothers who are policemen, were the ones who accompanied a government representative who delivered N70 million for the release of those kids.

Again, I went to Lamorde and he questioned the twin brothers on why they were providing cover for a civilian to deliver the ransom.

That was how my problem started. At the time when Lamorde went for retirement, my uncle (Bafarawa) went public and asked why Matawalle was giving vehicles to bandits.

He (Matawalle) assumed I must have been the one revealing the information to my uncle. So, he said my uncle was using me to tarnish his image politically. He decided to revenge and used those police officers to arrest, detain and persecute me.

What were you arrested for?

I was arrested on October 14, 2021.

My family was in Sokoto. I was living in the Government House and returning to Sokoto frequently. The Gimbas came to Sokoto and I received an invite by one OC (officer-in-charge) of Anti-Kidnapping. He was my friend. We were working together. He said we had a guest from Abuja and they needed accommodation, and asked me to come to give them my own ‘donation’.

He did not tell me their names. I told him I was at the Giginya Barracks together with their Garrison Commander but would join them soon. When I joined them, I realised they were the twin officers. They started beating, brutalising me. They cuffed my hands and legs and drove me to my house for a warrantless search. They confiscated my properties, including cash and gold.

Where were you taken to after the arrest?

They detained me at the Criminal Investigation Department in Zamfara for two days and in those days, they took me to the governor (Matawalle) at around 1 am and 2 am. He insulted me, saying I was being used to tarnish his image, telling me, ‘You are not coming back alive.’

The fact is that during my detention, all the statements they obtained from my were under duress. They did not even allow me to mention my appointment by the governor at any point. It was like a deliberate erasure of the truth while trying to forcibly confess to things I did not do or know about. They tagged me a ‘best friend’ to Turji — someone I came to know at the Government House in my official capacity.

They later took me to Kaduna. After two days in Kaduna, they took me to Abuja where I spent two weeks. The commander in Abuja wanted to grant me bail but the governor opposed it, and then, the story changed.

At what point did you come in contact with Dadiyata?

They took me back to Kaduna. That was how I met Dadiyata. I had neither heard about him nor known him before then. I did not know his story. He was in a severe condition, malnourished and facing acute hunger. He was tragically lean.

They were not giving anybody food. Even me, I spent five months with them. I became like a skeleton. Hunger nearly killed me. There were three cells at the station: Cell 1, Cell 2 and Cell 3. I was in 3 while he was in 2. All the cells were close to one another.

In the cell, you are stripped of any dignity and decency. You have no shoes and no good clothes.

Presido, the leader of the cells, was the one who gave me information about Dadiyata. I wanted to give Dadiyata food but he warned me that if the twin officers found me giving him food, I would be in trouble.

I briefly spoke with him one day and he told me his name. I asked where his relatives were. The next day, Hussaini asked me, ‘We have one suspect there, did you speak with him?’ I said no.

They then turned to Presido and asked him, ‘Are you seeing Musa speaking with that guy (Dadiyata)? He said yes.

The fact is that, if you were a special suspect, no police officer, including the CROs (charge room officers), would talk about you. If you had any problem, the CROs would inform the officer who detained you and they would come to attend to you.

Around 1 am in the night, Hussaini Gimba came alone and took Dadiyata away from his cell. I know them. I can easily identify them. I never set me eyes on him until I left Kaduna.

They tortured me, dehumanised me and even threatened to kill. Some days after taking Dadiyata away, Officer Hussaini Gimba brazenly threatened that if I did not cooperate with them, they would kill me like they killed Dadiyata. They did not kill him in my presence but they threatened to kill me like they killed him.

I was shocked. I was not expecting that but he said it and I feared for my life more. I knew my safety was not guaranteed in their hands but that statement reinforced it.

After I was released, I saw his pictures on social media where people were saying he was still missing. With his pictures, I knew he was the one I saw and spoke with at Operation Yaki’s station.

And there were others who were killed, too. I even contacted their families after my release. Some spent one year, some two years, others more without being charged to court. I am only waiting for the authorities to invite me so that I can explain everything. I am ready.

You said the twin police officers stole your properties. How did that happen?

After five months in detention, they confiscated my properties without a court order and without taking inventory of those assets and without any evidence of a crime against me.

One officer on their team, who was my man, advised me to take legal action because ‘Oga Hussiani is going to eliminate you’. He then volunteered to speak with my family on my behalf because I had been stripped of any access to them.

I gave him my brother’s number and they eventually filed fundamental rights action against the police.

Hussaini Gimba told me that they would not produce me before any other court outside Zamfara. So, they charged me with terrorism, kidnapping claims and illegal possession of firearms before a high court in Zamfara on March 13, 2022.

They couldn’t prove the case. The court granted me bail but they rearrested me. One year after, the court struck out the case for want of diligent prosecution.

You earlier mentioned Kebbi. Was that a mistake or was there something you wanted to say about the state?

I was detained at other stations. For instance, I was taken from Sokoto then to Zamfara. From Zamfara they took me to Abuja from where they took me to Minna in Niger State. Because they thought senior officers at the Niger State Police Command would not allow them maltreat me, they moved me to the Bosso Divisional Police Station in the Bosso LGA where I spent one week. The division was a quiet place.

Again, they transported me to Kebbi State before they took me to Kaduna. They were moving me around with an 18-seater white bus. Their drivers were Bamaiyi Shengbe and Sulaiman Bello, who were also police officers. But there was also Damana, who was not an officer. But each of them (Hussaini Gimba and Hassan Gimba) had a Toyota Hilux pickup.

Hussaini was the commander of Operation Yaki in Kaduna while Hassan worked in Niger State.

You earlier said that you were facilitating meetings between bandit leaders and Matawalle at the Government House. Do you have any footage of those moments that you could share?

I had pictures and videos of some of those meetings. But my phone was the first thing the policemen seized from me after my arrest. They have not released it since then.

I need to say that the courts dismissed their cases against me because they lacked any shred of evidence to show. The court in Zamfara ordered my release on January 12, 2023.

They rearrested and took me to the IRT (Intelligence Response Team) office in Zamfara on July 17, 2023, and detained me until December 2023.

Again, I was rearrested on December 11, 2024, until the Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed their case and released me on July 8, 2025.

Despite that, those twin brothers still made efforts to re-arrest me but they failed.

I filed for the enforcement of my rights and the illegal confiscation of my assets before the High Court in Sokoto and won in November 2025.