On Wednesday 1st April, 2020, I received a call from a colleague and friend, a lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Usmanu Danfodio University, Sokoto. He asked me if I had seen a news item in the online version of The Nation newspapers about an Imam who is being accused of sodomizing a child. I said no. Because I had spent a greater portion of the day visiting with friends, I had been mostly offline. When I enquired further, he told me to search for the news item then we could discuss later. I promised to do that and revert. I returned home late, and by the time I had chance to do what I promised, I had forgotten about our conversation completely.
Around 10:00pm same day however, I received another call from another colleague this time from Kaduna, I was on phone when the call came in so I couldn’t pick up. It was a little bit unusual because this is not the person that will normally call at that hour of the night, so this got me a little alarmed. When I didn’t pick her call, my colleague decided to send me a message on WhatsApp. So when I was done, instead of calling back I decided to firstly check the message that came in from her.
On opening the message, I read one of the most devastating news items I have seen in a long time. Splashed on the front cover of the Nation newspaper was a screaming headline “Imam nabbed for sodomizing minor” beside which was a picture of a man in blue safari shirt. It’s someone I knew and very well too. At first sight, it was confusion and fear, I was palpitating.
Then the conversation I had earlier with my Sokoto friend rushed back to memory. With my palpitations and trembling hands, I clicked on the link. Like most of those that know Pharmacist Abubakar popularly known by his last name Danraka, it was a spoiler alert for another three nights at least.
The story as reported by the Nation and provided by NAPTIP was not only sensational but full of details about Abubakar’s profile; a Chief Pharmacist at the National Hospital, Abuja, a PhD holder, a Technical Assistant to the current DG National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Idu Abuja and most importantly, Imam of the estate mosque where he lived together with his wife and children. It looked like NAPTIP had got a good bio on the suspect. It added that the boy in question is a son of his neighbor in the same estate and that the boy had gone visiting his friend who happened to be a son to Abubakar’s neighbor. It also claimed that the boy was drugged then sodomized. What the story didn’t do was tell the reader even a little bit about the father or parents of the boy in question apart from the claim that the boy reported to his mom after some interrogation. It then went on to further claim that the boy in question was admitted at the national hospital for 4 days and discharged with exams and tests conducted which confirmed the occurrence of the incident.

Now, before I continue, let me make some declarations:

1. I know both Pharm. Abubakar and the Father of the child in question.
2. I have known Abubakar for about 20 years now beginning in the year 2000 when I got admission to study Pharmacy at ABU. He was a year ahead of me. I have also worked with him at the National Hospital for one year and had kept in touch with him since I left there after my internship 12 years ago.
3. I had also worked with the father of the child in question (I will not mention his name here because the case is in court) for one year.
4. That the father of the child is a surbodinate of Pharm. Abubarkar in the Pharmacy department of the National Hospital. He’s a pharmacy technician.

Now that we have established the relationship between the two people at the center of the controversy, let me retell the summary of the other side of the story as told to me Abubakar’s colleagues and neighbors. This should have been reported by NAPTIP and our yellow journalists had they done the least due diligence needed to balance the story.

I have friends… and family too at the National Hospital, doctors and pharmacists.

So, while I have not spoken to Abubakar (I deliberately didn’t call him because I wanted to hear the story from people that could tell the story as it truly is), at least I have spoken to his colleagues and the doctors that could have been in position to know if the boy in question had been admitted as claimed by NAPTIP. I have also spoken to a neighbor that happens to have stayed in the same estate with the two families and knows them both.

THE ABUBAKAR WE KNOW

For those that know Abubakar – Muslims, Christians and atheists – there’s something indisputable about him; his decency and moral rectitude. From King’s College where he had his secondary education and was both a school prefect and president of the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, to ABU, and specifically, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences where he was not only the beloved Ameer of PMSS, but a moral voice in the larger MSS body and even secular students’ associations like the Pharmaceutical Association of Nigerian Students. So it’s understandable if the reaction to the story was that of total disbelief and rejection. Those that were most vehement amongst professional colleagues were not even Muslims.

For me personally, he was a neighbor at the hostel (even when his family home was just across the road opposite the north gate in Samaru), a senior at the Faculty and a colleague at work. Again, I spent another 4 years with him in the Faculty of Public Health of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists. So I think know him well enough.

While I know that this may not be the best of times to defend a man on the basis of faith, but no matter how bad and how low some have soiled the name of religion, there are people out there who live true to the tenets and teaching of their faith, and there are only a few I know that better epitomize this than Pharmacist Abubakar.

MY FINDINGS

Now to the issue that has become a subject of both conventional and social media trial by NAPTIP and his accusers, my enquiry have established the following:

1. That at the time NAPTIP claimed the incident happened, the accused was not at home. He was at the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Idu helping his boss to prepare for ISO certification for some of their research facilities. Witnesses in the estate and at the estate mosque have testified that while he led the prayers early morning prayers in the mosque on that fateful day, he only returned in the evening and was present for the early evening prayer after sunset. This can easily be verified at both NIPRD and at the estate.

2. His wife and children were at home throughout the day the NAPTIP claimed the incident happened. They are all alive and this can be verified from neighbours.

3. There’s no record of admission and/or hospitalization of the said victim at the National Hospital. This is also verifiable from the hospital records.

4. The alleged victim’s father had first made claim of the incident to the estate mosque committee and had tried to blackmail Pharmacist Abubukar to give him money so he could let the matter die down, it was Pharm. Abubakar that refused the blackmail and reported the matter to the police and freely submitted himself for investigation. When the police asked the father to present the child for interview, he refused and instead involved NAPTIP.

4. All those that know the two people involved (present and former colleagues at NHA, neighbors and friends) are united in the believe that this is a set-up by the child’s father to tarnish the image of his boss at office for perhaps an offense or a perceived one. For instance, the father is known to have been borrowing money from Pharm. Abubakar and other colleagues and refusing to pay, so Abubakar has rightly decided not to give anymore.

I don’t know why NAPTIP decided to take this to the press while police investigation was still ongoing, but this to me looks not only unprofessional and unethical but also very irresponsible on their part. I hope that by the time this is over, Abubakar sues NAPTIP for libel and defamation of character and pursue this to its logical end.

By Aminu .A Kuba