Badeh, The Military Chief Who Could Not Secure His Hometown

When Mubi, Adamawa state fell on October 31, 2014, Vimtim, hometown of Alex Badeh, Chief of Defence Staff and an Air Chief Marshall, also fell.

Badeh was sacked alongside other service chiefs by President Muhammadu Buhari two months after assuming office as Commander in Chief.

On Tuesday, the former Air Force Chief was killed near Abuja on his way back from his farm on the Abuja – Keffi Expressway by unknown gunmen.

As CDS, Badeh was the topmost gun in the military but could not secure his home state and town as most parts fell to Boko Haram militants.

It was a brazen Boko Haram terrorists that marched on the state’s second-largest town one Wednesday in October, 2014 and sacked the town driving in about 14 trucks.

The Boko Haram fighters will later proclaim a new government based on Islamic law and renamed the town “Madinatul Islam” meaning the city of Islam.

During the occupation, the militants engaged in killings, looting and arson. They set the main market on fire, looted banks, and occupied the palace of the Emir of Mubi.

Scared residents were forced to flee the town with thousands trekking in different directions.

Many people were stranded in the bush, while others crossed into Cameroon through the border town of Dumo.

At Vimtim, the hometown of Badeh, the terrorists went straight to his compound but found the place deserted.

A former Mubi North Local Government chairman, John Kwale Vimtim, told the BBC Hausa radio then: “They attacked Vimtim this morning (yesterday) and they went straight to the Chief of Defence Staff’s house. They did not kill or attack anybody in the house.

“There is nobody in the house at the time, because… all the people of Vimtim had already deserted the town” following the attack on Mubi.

Badeh will later be charged for corrupt practices with allegations that he diverted over N3.9billion from accounts of the Nigerian Air Force,‎ and was standing trial until his murder.