The family of a Kaduna-based teacher and activist, Bege Timothy Suchet, has raised the alarm over his continued disappearance for four years now after members of the Inspector-General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) raided his home seeking his arrest.
The officers from the IRT, Abuja, had stormed the house of Timothy on March 30, 2022, demanding his arrest, but never met him at home.
They searched the house without finding any incriminating evidence, according to the family.
The IRT team, it was gathered, was led by ASP Ameh Friday, team leader (former Inspector); Sgt. Ayuba Jonathan – now Inspector; Sgt. Edogi Iloko, now Inspector; Sgt Ejegwa Philip; and PC Ilesanmi Israel.
Speaking on the situation and what transpired at Timothy’s house, his wife, Mrs Jumai Bege Timothy, said she was arrested when the IRT team could not find her husband, but was later released.
Narrating her story, Mrs Timothy said, “On March 30, 2022, a team of IRT came to our house in search of my husband, who wasn’t around. So, they took me to the police station at Kasuwan Magani, in the Kajuru Local Government of Kaduna State, and from there they took me straight to the office of Operation Yaki in Kaduna Town that same day.
“From March 30, 2022 to April 5, 2022, I did not hear from my husband. On April 17, 2022, one of his friends, Luka Salatu, called my mother-in-law and told her that my husband was arrested by the police.
“That he was being informed by a lady called Rejoice Michael that it was the police who came and took him, and that they came from Abuja. From then up until now, we have not heard from or seen my husband again,” she said.
Our findings showed that after the police raid on Timothy’s house in Kaduna, he was never seen or heard from again.
Family members said his case might not differ from that of a renowned government critic, Abubakar Idris, better known as Dadiyata.
A lecturer in the Department of English and Linguistics at the Federal University Dutsinma, Katsina State, Dadiyata was, on August 1, 2019, declared missing by his wife after some gunmen abducted him in his Kaduna home. His whereabouts remain unknown.
However, El-Rufai has come out to deny involvement in the cases of the missing persons.
While speaking on ARISE Television recently, El-Rufai, who was governor between 2015 and 2023, disclosed that he was privy to a confession allegedly made by a certain remorseful policeman that he was part of a team sent from Kano to abduct Dadiyata.
According to him, “Three years after he was abducted, a policeman who was posted from Kano to Ekiti State confessed to someone that they were sent from Kano to abduct Dadiyata and that the officer was worried about that. That is all I know.”
Reminded by the television anchor that Dadiyata was believed to be his critic, El-Rufai responded that he wasn’t “aware of the existence” of the missing Dadiyata. If anything, he stressed, the missing lecturer was known to be a follower of the Kwankwasiyya movement, and, therefore, a political opponent of the then Kano State governor, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje.”
“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,” stated El-Rufai.
