Habiba Abubakar, mother of Abdulsamad Jamiu—the National Youth Service Corps member allegedly killed by soldiers at his Dei-Dei, Abuja home—has shared the devastating experience of how she learned about her son’s death.
In an interview with The Cable on Monday, Abubakar described a night of frantic, unanswered calls, missing phones, and loved ones too frightened to reveal the truth.
She explained that she and her husband had travelled for a burial when a neighbour called to warn her that something was wrong in their neighbourhood.
“I travelled on Thursday, hoping to come back on Saturday and find my son at home. Then, around 2:30, my neighbour called. I answered, and she asked, Hope there is no problem?’ She said she was hearing gunshots. At that moment, fear gripped me.
Abubakar immediately tried to contact her first son, but his phone was off. Her daughter’s line was busy. When she finally reached her husband, he seemed reluctant to say what had happened.
At first, he didn’t want to tell me the truth. He just said, Soldiers took Abdulsamad. I asked, ‘Soldiers? Abdulsamad? How? Why? He replied that they wanted to interrogate him.
Amid her distress, Abubakar’s phone was taken from her—she’s not sure by whom—and later, when she asked for it, her family claimed they could not find it.
That was when I knew my son was no longer alive, she said.
Desperate for answers, she pressed her daughter Farida for information. Farida only urged her to remain calm, worried about her mother’s blood pressure.
When I got to Abuja, I discovered my son was dead, Abubakar said.
She recounted being told that soldiers scaled the fence rather than using the gate, entered through the backyard, and went directly to Abdulsamad’s room.
They shot him through the door—twice, she recounted.
According to her, after the killing, the soldiers ordered vigilante members in the area to clean up the blood, instructing them to fetch a bucket and detergent from her kitchen.
“They came into my kitchen, took the Klin detergent, took a bucket, and handed them to the vigilante to mop up the blood. Why? Why would they do that?” she asked.
Throughout the interview, Habiba wept as she recalled that her son had been in his room when the soldiers arrived—not outside, not in the parlour.
“Who did he offend? I want to know. Who did you offend?” she repeated, her grief swinging between anguish and anger.
Abdulsamad, 24, was killed in the early hours of April 25 at his family home in Dei-Dei Shagari Quarters while his parents were away. His sister was in the house at the time.
The Headquarters Guards Brigade of the Nigerian Army claimed that Jamiu was killed in crossfire as troops responded to a distress call about armed robbers. According to Brigade spokesperson Odunola Olawuyi, soldiers came under fire from fleeing suspects, and the fatality occurred during the confrontation.
However, the family, in a formal statement released on Monday, rejected the military’s version, describing it as false, misleading, and an affront to Abdulsamad’s memory.
They stated that the bullet trajectory showed the shot was fired from outside the room through a closed door—contradicting claims of a firefight. The family also noted that no weapons were found, no armed adversary was identified, and that witnesses heard only a single shot throughout the night: the one fired inside the Jamiu residence.
The family further alleged that soldiers admitted at the scene, in the presence of a Divisional Police Officer, that they had made a mistake.
The soldiers acknowledged that killing Abdulsamad Jamiu was a mistake. They admitted to having killed an innocent person, the statement read.
Among the family’s demands are an independent investigation, suspension and prosecution of those responsible, a retraction of the Army’s statement, and a formal apology.
“The Nigerian Military operates under a constitutional mandate to protect Nigerian citizens. On the night of 25th April 2026, that mandate was catastrophically and fatally violated, the family’s statement said.
