He did not go to Kaduna to fight. He did not go to chase wealth. Ibrahim Kadafa, fondly called Ibro, only went home to supervise the harvest on his farm.
It was October 28, 2026. A day that should have ended with bags of soybeans and smiles. Instead, it ended with gunshots and death.
Sources said Ibro, who worked in Abuja, had travelled to Alheri Camp, Kilometre 30, along the Kaduna-Abuja road, to harvest soybeans on his farm. He went with his friend, Mustapha Shelpidi. They were on the farm, doing honest work, when armed men emerged from the bush and whisked both men away.
That was the last time his family saw him alive.
For two weeks, the family lived between hope and horror. The phone calls came. First, the kidnappers demanded N100 million. A figure far beyond what a farming family could dream of. After desperate pleading and painful negotiations, it was reduced to N80 million.
Still, it was too much. But love does not calculate. The family sold property, borrowed, begged and gathered. In the end, they paid N56 million. They added three brand-new Samsung phones and a recharge card worth N20,000, just as demanded by the scoundrels, believing that every kobo would buy back Ibro’s life.
They waited for the reunion. They prepared for his return. They also prayed.
On Wednesday, November 11, the agreed date, they went to receive him.
Family members horrified. What they received was his corpse.
No embrace. No “thank God you are back.” Just a lifeless body handed over to them like a parcel.
Family sources say Ibro had sustained a gunshot injury to his leg while attempting to escape during the abduction. For two weeks in captivity, he had no doctor, no medicine, no bandage. Just pain, hunger, and fear in the bush. They suspect complications from the untreated wound may have killed him before the ransom was even paid.
He paid with his life, and his family still paid with everything they had.
Today, the farm he went to harvest stands silent. The soybeans he laboured for remain. But Ibro will never return to gather them.
A grieving source lamented that Ibro left Abuja as a worker, a friend, a son, a brother, but returned to his family as a memory.
The source expressed the worry that somewhere along that Kaduna-Abuja highway, another family is still counting the cost of going to their own farm.
