‘Nigeria has happened to me’: Mother of slain NYSC member seek for justice

Habiba Abubakar, mother of Abdulsamad Jamiu, a National Youth Service Corps member reportedly killed by soldiers at his home in Dei-Dei, Abuja, has shared the harrowing experience of discovering her son’s death.

In a heartbreaking account, she described a night filled with frantic phone calls, misplaced devices, and relatives too afraid to break the devastating news.

Abubakar, speaking in an interview with The Cable on Monday, said she had travelled for a burial ceremony with her husband when a neighbour’s call alerted her that something was wrong in her neighbourhood.

“I travelled on Thursday, hoping to come back on Saturday to meet my son at home. Only for me to receive a call from my next neighbour around 2:30. I said hello. She said, ‘Hope there is no problem?’ She said she’s hearing gunshots. Fear gripped me,” she said.

She said she immediately called her first son, but the number was switched off. Her daughter’s line was busy.

When she eventually reached her husband, he was evasive.

“Initially, he didn’t want to tell me the actual truth. He said, ‘Soldier carried Abdulsamad.’ I said, soldier, Abdulsamad? How, for what? He said, no, they want to go and interrogate him,” she said.

Abubakar said her phone was taken from her while she cried, she did not know by whom, and when she demanded it back, her family claimed they could not locate it.

“That was when I knew that my son is not alive again,” she said.

She said she kept pressing her daughter, Farida, for the truth, but the daughter kept urging her to calm down, citing her blood pressure.

“I’m getting to Abuja, only for me to discover that my son was dead,” she said.

Recounting what she was told of the killing, Abubakar said soldiers entered her compound by scaling the fence rather than through the gate, proceeded through the backyard exit door, and went straight to Abdulsamad’s room.

“They shot him through the door. They shot the door two times,” she said.

She alleged that after the killing, soldiers asked vigilante members in the area to clean up the blood, directing them to fetch a bucket and detergent from her kitchen.

“They entered my kitchen, took Klin, from there, took bucket and gave the vigilante to mop the blood. What happened? Why would they do that?” she said.

Weeping throughout the interview, Habiba said her son was inside his room when the soldiers came, not in the compound, not in the parlour.

“Who did he offend? I want to know. Who did you offend?” she said repeatedly, her grief shifting between anguish and raw anger.

Abdulsamad, 24, was killed in the early hours of April 25 at his family residence in Dei-Dei Shagari Quarters while his parents were away. His sister was in the house at the time.

The Headquarters Guards Brigade, Nigerian Army, had claimed Jamiu was caught in crossfire when troops responded to a distress call about armed robbers.

Brigade spokesperson Odunola Olawuyi said troops came under fire from fleeing suspects and that the death occurred “in the course of the engagement.”

The family, in a formal statement issued on Monday, rejected the military’s account, describing it as “false, misleading, and an affront to the memory of an innocent young man.”

The family stated that the bullet trajectory showed the shot was fired from outside the room through a closed door — “not consistent with a firefight.”

It added that no weapons were recovered, no armed adversary was identified, and that witnesses heard only a single gunshot throughout the night: the one fired inside the Jamiu residence.

The family also 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 the killing of Abdulsamad Jamiu was a mistake. They admitted that they had killed an innocent person,” the statement read.

Among the family’s demands are an independent investigation, the 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 statement said.

Among the family’s demands are an independent investigation, the 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 statement said.