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Missing General: Army Give Details Of How Idris Alkali’s Body Was Found

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Nigerian Army Recounts How Late Major General Alkali’s Body Was Located

The Nigerian Army has narrated how it recovered the remains of the former Head of Administration, Army Headquarters, retired Major General Idris Alkali in a well in Gwuchet village of Jos, Plateau State.

The Army had yesterday reported that the remains of Alkali were found in a sack laden with heavy stones in an abandoned well in Gwuchet village in Shen district of Jos south Local government Area, Naija News reports.

Guchwet village was abandoned by residents at the time journalists visited. The community is less than 10 kilometres from ‘No man’s land’ in Dura-Du where the army last week traced a shallow grave in which Alkali was said to have been buried but later exhumed.

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The vehicle of the retired senior military officer with registration number Kwara MUN 670 AA had also been recovered from an old mining pond in Dura-Du on September 29.

After the discovery yesterday, the officer-in-charge of the search and rescue operation for the missing general, Brigadier General Umar Mohammed, exposed the remains of Gen. Alkali from a green and white body bag for journalists to see.

The retired general was later given a military parade and carried by four other Brigadier Generals into a waiting ambulance. The remains were later deposited at an Army hospital and would be buried as soon as the army gives instructions, Mohammed said.

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Earlier, Brig-Gen Mohammed, who is also the Garrison Commander 3 Armoured Division, Maxwell Kobe Cantonment, Rukuba near Jos, said the location for the abandoned well was provided by one of the eight suspects declared wanted by the police who submitted himself for interrogation.

He said the informant was one of those who participated in the relocation of the remains of the general after he was exhumed from the shallow grave in ‘No man’s land’ Dura-Du.

“One of them, who is in police custody, brought us here directly yesterday night (Tuesday). You cannot just see an abandoned well and see somebody inside, none of us has come here before but because we are working with intelligence, we were brought here and when we drained the water we found the body,” he said.

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Narrating the search and rescue operation, the Garrison Commander said, “General Alkali was declared missing on the 3 of September and since that time the Nigerian Army gave us three tasks: the first was to find General Alkali dead or alive, the second was to find his vehicle which was a Toyota Corolla and the third was if anything had happened to him, to find those responsible and ensure that they are arrested and prosecuted.”

He added that, “as you are all aware, on the 29th of September 2018 we were able to discover the vehicle; we saw his personal effects to confirm that. In the same vein last week, I called you and I showed you the shallow grave in which General Alkali was buried initially. We have declared some people wanted and based on that, some of them have reported to the police and some people who took part in the relocation brought us to where he was relocated, he was actually relocated into an abandoned well behind me here. We came here this morning, we drained the water and we were able to salvage the remains of Gen. Alkali.”

Brigadier General Mohammed further said with two out of the three tasks now completed, what is left is for all those who took part in the murder of the retired senior officer to be brought to book. “Let me tell you that nobody, no matter how connected the person is, whoever is connected with this heinous act will not go unpunished,” he said.

While thanking the police and the Nigeria Fire Service for their collaborative efforts, he said six of the wanted suspects were presently in police custody and urged others to surrender themselves to the police as the army was on their trail.