At 24, Abdulsamad Jamiu should have been finishing the National Youth Service Corps. The ritual of national service. Unity. Sacrifice. A certificate and a future.
Instead, he is dead in Dei-Dei, Abuja. Shot in his room on April 25 during a military operation.
Now Nigeria has two stories. But only one can be true.
The Acting Assistant Director, Army Public Relations, Lieutenant Olawuyi Odunola, said soldiers on routine patrol responded to a robbery in Shagari Estate. Troops came under fire. They returned fire in a “brief but intense” gunfight. Jamiu, the Army said, was hit by stray bullets.
The family calls that fiction. Relatives say soldiers scaled their fence at 2am, entered without warning, and fired through Jamiu’s closed bedroom door. He died instantly. They cite bullet trajectory and the absence of multiple gunshots. No firefight, they insisted. Just one fatal shot.
Crossfire or execution? Outdoors or in his bed? Gun battle or single round?
We were not told if any robbers were shot. Or if thieves ran into that building. Why was it only that building that was hit?
Without answers, official statements look less like accountability and more like damage control.
The military has a constitutional role. Their job is to protect, not kill. Increasingly, that role is internal security. Anti-robbery. Anti-banditry. Urban response.
The threats are real. Criminals hide in crowds. Intelligence fails. Pressure is high.
But none of that removes one obligation: to distinguish between threat and civilian.
Professional armies are judged by two metrics. How well they fight the enemy. And how well they protect the innocent. Fail the second, and the first means nothing.
Yet, the pattern is the problem; Jamiu’s death is not an outlier. It is a data point.
Let’s consider these:
One is Lekki Toll Gate, 2020. Soldiers fired on protesters. The Army first denied it. Then said blanks. A panel found otherwise. No convictions.
Two, Tudun Biri, December 2023. A drone mistook worshippers for terrorists. Eighty-five civilians killed. The military called it an intelligence failure. Paid compensation. Promised reform.
Three is Jilli Market, March 2026. Airstrikes on a market. Amnesty International counted 100+ dead. Locals said 200. The government called it counterterrorism. Then ordered a probe.
Then number four is the Dei-Dei, April 2026. A corps member in his room. The Army says crossfire. The family says execution.
The script never changes.
Statement first ─ certainty before forensics. Families speak next. Investigations are announced. Findings go quiet. Officers are redeployed. Trust bleeds out.
Nigeria does not lack boards of inquiry. It seems to lack credibility.
Overall, I worry about the real questions that matter: What forensic examination was done before the Army spoke? Were witness statements taken outside the barracks? What evidence proves robbers were there? Where are the thieves? Where are their guns?
If the Army’s version holds, prove it. If the family’s version holds, own it.
This is not anti-military. Soldiers die for Nigeria, too. But when a corps member in NYSC khaki is shot in his bed, and the answer is “stray bullets,” that uniform begins to look like a target, not a shield.
But here is the bottom line: Abdulsamad Jamiu was serving his country. His death demands more than conflicting press releases.
Where civilians die during security operations, truth cannot become collateral damage.
Until one case breaks the cycle, with speed, with transparency, with consequences, every official statement will sound like a cover-up.
And everybody will feel like the cost of doing business.