Abdulsamad Jamiu: Family insists 24-year-old Corps member was shot in his room as Army admits death was a ‘mistake’

The father of Abdulsamad Jamiu, the 24-year-old corps member shot dead by soldiers in Abuja on Saturday, says the military operatives who killed his son looked him in the eye and called it a mistake.

“I asked them how it led to my son being shot inside his room,” Sani Jimoh told journalists at the family home in Dei-Dei, Shagari Estate. “They told me to calm down and said it was a mistake.”

This admission has done nothing to settle the grief or the questions mounting around the death of a young man who, by all accounts, was asleep in his room when soldiers entered the compound in the early hours of April 25.

What the army says happened

The Guards Brigade Quick Response Force has maintained that Jamiu was caught in a crossfire. In a statement, the Brigade said troops had responded to a distress call from residents reporting an armed robbery attack in the area.

“Upon arrival, the troops came under gunfire from the fleeing armed robbers, resulting in a brief but intense exchange,” the statement reads. The military described the scene as “fluid and highly volatile” and said Jamiu’s remains were handed over to civil authorities at Kubwa General Hospital.

What the family says happened

The family’s account is a direct contradiction, supported by what they say is physical evidence at the scene.

According to Jimoh, soldiers told him they had been chasing a suspected thief and noticed that the barbed wire fence around his compound appeared tampered with. Believing a suspect had entered the property, they scaled the fence, found an unlocked door into the main house, and proceeded to Abdulsamad’s room. When someone on the other side of the door resisted it being forced open, a shot was fired through the closed door, from outside the room.

The bullet struck Abdulsamad in the head. He died instantly. “How did you jump through my fence, enter my house, go straight to my son’s room and shoot him?” Jimoh asked. The soldiers, he said, had no answer beyond a request to calm down.

The family has been unequivocal about the bullet’s trajectory. “The shot was fired from outside the room, through a closed door,” their statement reads. “The trajectory of the bullet — confirmed by physical examination of the bullet hole, which runs from the room door to the wall — establishes that.”

They further note that no weapon was recovered from the scene, no armed adversary has been identified or produced, and no shell casings from any party other than the military have been documented. “An exchange of gunfire presupposes an adversary who is armed and actively firing,” the statement adds. “No such adversary existed.”

A sister who watched her brother die

Abdulsamad’s sister, Farida, was in the house when it happened. She woke to the sound of gunshots and was brought outside by three soldiers, who showed her damaged barbed wire and a broken window and asked if the damage had been there before.

“I pleaded with them that if I get down, they should not harm me,” she said.

She assumed, she said, that they were about to tell her Abdulsamad had escaped. Instead, when the door to his room was forced open, she found her brother in a pool of blood.

“I wanted to go into my brother’s room, but they dragged me, and I struggled with them until I discovered that my brother was dead and part of his brain was beside him on the floor. I was just screaming, and I ran back outside. And one of the soldiers was threatening me and asked me to shut up.”

After the shooting, the family alleges, soldiers summoned local vigilantes and instructed them to mop the blood from the scene using detergent and a bucket taken from the family’s own kitchen. The family says this constitutes deliberate tampering with evidence.

The admission, the visit, and the demands

The family says the soldiers’ admission that an innocent person had been killed was made in the presence of the Divisional Police Officer for Dei-Dei and captured in a written statement. Jimoh added that the DPO described the incident as both unfortunate and careless.

On Monday, a delegation from the Nigerian Army, led by Brigadier General S.O. Buhari, visited the family on a condolence mission. The general reportedly promised that an investigation would be conducted and that those responsible would be held accountable.

He also reportedly told the family that one of their sons would be considered for the Direct Short Service Commission — a path Abdulsamad himself had been planning to pursue after completing his NYSC year.

The family has rejected any such gesture as a substitute for justice. Their demands are straightforward: a full retraction of the army’s crossfire narrative, an independent civilian-led investigation, and accountability for those who entered their home and killed their son.

“We told the army that they should either retract it or issue the true version of the event,” Jimoh said. As of the time of publication, the Guards Brigade’s original statement remained live on the Nigerian Army’s official social media pages, where it had accumulated more than 3,000 likes and 1,000 comments.

Abdulsamad Jamiu spent the evening before his death at a games hub he co-managed with friends — playing tennis, chess, and snooker. His friend Yusuf Enesi was with him.

“I woke up to the call in the early hours of Saturday that he was shot in his room,” Enesi said.

He was 24.