By Ozumi Abdul
He left home that Saturday believing, as he always did, that he would return to laughter, noise, and the familiar chaos of family life. The sun was high over Dorayi Chiranchi Quarters in Kano, and the afternoon of Saturday, 17 January 2026, felt ordinary. His wife stood at the doorway, her hands busy, her mind on routine domestic tasks. Their six children gathered around her, playful, loud, alive.
As their father stepped out, they chorused their usual farewell , “sanjuma Baba” — goodbye, father. He responded, as he always did, with the hope of returning to them.
That was the last exchange.
When he returned, there would be no eager replies to his greeting. No voices answering his familiar “assalamu alaikum.” No children rushing to the door. Within the space of less than three hours, his entire world had been extinguished — not by an accident on the road, not by a fire, not by some distant tragedy, but by deliberate, properly well planned and brutal violence carried out inside his own home, in broad daylight.
His wife was dead. His six children were dead. All of them killed where they should have been safest.
The weight of that reality is difficult to put into words. Where does a man begin when the family he left standing is wiped out before his return? How does one process the loss of a wife, a partner, a confidant, and six children, each with a face, a voice, a future, all erased in a single afternoon? It is grief multiplied beyond comprehension, shock layered upon shock, a silence louder than any scream.
In Dorayi Chiranchi, that silence descended with terrifying speed.
Fatima Abubakar, a mother of six, and her children, Maimuna, Aisha, Bashir, Abubakar, Faruk, and little Abdussalam, barely a toddler , were found murdered in their home. There was no sign of struggle spilling into the street, no warning cries that drew immediate attention. Life around the neighborhood went on briefly, unaware that an entire household had just been annihilated behind closed doors.
When the truth emerged, it ripped through the community like a thunderclap.
This was not a case of a family traveling and meeting disaster elsewhere. This was not a random act of violence at night. It happened in the middle of the day, on a sunny afternoon, inside a familiar home. The idea that such carnage could occur so quietly unsettled even hardened residents. People asked themselves the same question again and again: If this could happen here, in daylight, to a known family, then where is truly safe?
For the husband, whose name authorities have withheld, grief became a physical thing. Every room of the house turned into a reminder. Every object, a child’s slipper, a cooking pot, a mat on the floor, became evidence of a life that had existed only hours earlier. The final image in his mind is of waving children and a wife standing at the door, alive and whole. The next image is death.
It is a cruelty few human beings are ever forced to endure.
As shock gave way to outrage, the focus shifted to how such an act could happen and who was responsible. The Kano State Police Command moved swiftly, aware of the public anger and the scale of the tragedy. Within 24 hours, officers announced the arrest of three suspects, among them a revelation that deepened the horror: one of the alleged masterminds was a nephew of the slain woman.
According to police investigations, Umar Auwalu, 23, allegedly led the attack alongside Isyaku Yakubu, also known as Chebe, and Yakubu Abdulaziz, known as Wawo. Their arrest followed intelligence-led operations ordered at the highest levels of the police hierarchy. Security operatives tracked movements, intercepted communications, and moved quickly to prevent any attempt at escape.
When the suspects were paraded, police disclosed that they had confessed to the crime, detailing how the attack was carried out. Items recovered included weapons allegedly used in the killings, personal belongings of the victims, and other materials linking the suspects to the scene. Investigators said the suspects also admitted involvement in other violent crimes across Kano metropolis, raising further concerns about how long such individuals had been operating before this massacre.
The motive, according to preliminary findings, revolved around criminal intent, robbery and internal betrayal, rather than any sudden emotional outburst. That detail made the crime even harder to swallow. A family was not killed in the heat of passion; they were killed as targets.
Government officials condemned the attack in strong terms. The Kano State governor described it as barbaric and inhuman, while national figures echoed calls for justice. The Inspector-General of Police directed that the investigation be thorough and that prosecution be swift. Condolences flowed, statements were issued, and promises were made.
Yet for many Nigerians, especially those in Kano, the tragedy reopened an older wound, one that had never fully healed.
The name Hanifa Abubakar still lingers heavily in the state’s collective memory. In late 2021, Kano was shaken by the discovery that a five-year-old girl had been murdered by someone entrusted with her care — her school proprietor and teacher. Hanifa had left home for school, a routine journey every parent trusts, only to be kidnapped, poisoned, and buried in a shallow grave within the school premises.
The betrayal in Hanifa’s case was profound. A teacher, meant to protect and educate, became her killer. The crime triggered protests, school closures, and national outrage. Eventually, after months of investigation and trial, the courts sentenced the principal offender and his accomplices to death. Justice, though delayed, was eventually delivered.
But the long wait before judgment left scars.
In both Dorayi Chiranchi and Hanifa’s case, a painful pattern emerges — violence rooted not in distant strangers, but in breached trust. A relative. A teacher. People within the social circle, not outsiders. This reality forces an uncomfortable reckoning: danger does not always come from the unknown; sometimes it grows quietly within familiar spaces.
The killings in Dorayi Chiranchi reignited calls for quicker justice, not just arrests, but accelerated prosecution and decisive sentencing. Many residents argue that prolonged trials, adjournments, and legal delays weaken deterrence. When justice crawls, criminals feel emboldened.
When consequences are swift and certain, the message is clearer: society will not tolerate such acts.
Legal experts and civil society groups have echoed this sentiment. They argue that while due process must be respected, justice delayed in cases of extreme violence erodes public confidence. For the bereaved husband, no verdict can bring back his wife or children. But for society, timely justice can at least affirm that their lives mattered, and that their deaths will not be reduced to another forgotten headline.
The comparison with Hanifa’s case is instructive. Public pressure, media attention, and sustained outrage ensured that the case did not fade quietly. The eventual conviction sent a strong signal that crimes against children would be met with the full weight of the law. Many now ask whether the Dorayi Chiranchi case will follow the same path — or whether it will be swallowed by delays and procedural slowdowns.
There is also a broader conversation unfolding about community vigilance and security. How did armed individuals gain access to a family home in daylight? Were there warning signs missed? Are there gaps in neighborhood security structures that need urgent attention? While policing is crucial, many residents believe communities must rebuild systems of collective awareness, not suspicion, but responsibility.
Yet no amount of policy discussion can erase the human cost.
Somewhere in Kano, a man wakes up each morning to a house that no longer feels like home. The echoes of “sanjuma Baba” linger in his mind, frozen in time. He left that day expecting to be welcomed back. Instead, he returned to finality. The goodbye his children offered him became permanent.
Their story, like Hanifa’s, must not fade into abstraction. It must remain a warning, a reminder, and a demand, for vigilance, for justice, and for a society that moves swiftly to protect its most vulnerable.
Because when goodbyes become eternal, and homes turn into crime scenes, the cost of delay is measured not just in time, but in lives already lost — and lives that could yet be saved.
Ozumi Abdul is a journalist and strategic communication expert. He can be reached via abdulozumi83@gmail.com