Details Emerge on the Killing of Arise News Journalist Somtochukwu Maduagwu

A police investigator told the FCT High Court in Jabi, Abuja, on Tuesday that Somtochukwu Maduagwu, a journalist with Arise News Television, was killed during an armed robbery about a year ago. The investigator said a member of the robbery gang pushed her over a two-storey building.

Douglas Ishaku, an assistant superintendent of police (ASP), is the fourth prosecution witness in the trial of 11 suspects involved in the incident. He also said one of the robbers shot Barnabas Danlami, a security guard at the house, during the robbery. This happened at Ms Maduagwu’s home in the Katampe area of Abuja on 29 September 2025.

"We found out that one of the occupants was pushed down from a two-storey building by one of the defendants, and the security guard was killed," the police investigator said. This contradicts the story that Ms Maduagwu jumped to her death in a panic to escape the robbers.

Mr Ishaku did not name the suspect who pushed Ms Maduagwu but did identify the one who shot the security guard. "During the investigation, we found out that the first defendant (Shamsu Hassan) was the one who shot the security man," he said.

In January, the police charged 11 suspects with the murder of 29-year-old Ms Maduagwu and armed robbery related to the 29 September 2025 incident. The defendants are Shamsu Hassan, Sani Sirajo, Hassan Isah, Abubakar Alkamu, Abdulsalam Saleh, Suleiman Badamasi, Zaharadeen Mohammed, Musa Umar, Mashkur Jamil, Suleiman Sani, and Abubakar Usman.

Mr Ishaku also told the court how police arrested the 11 defendants. His account matches that of the third prosecution witness, Maxwell Eje, who is also an ASP and part of the investigation team. In April, Mr Eje said Mr Hassan told them where Mr Sirajo was hiding.

Mr Sirajo led them to the location of the weapons used in the robbery, both Mr Eje and Mr Ishaku confirmed in their testimonies. They also mentioned that some of the defendants admitted to the crime.

On Tuesday, Mr Ishaku explained that human intelligence and digital analysis were used to catch the defendants. He noted that Mr Hassan ran to Zaria after the robbery. The suspect admitted to the crime when he was arrested in Zaria.

The witness said Mr Hassan revealed where Mr Sirajo was. Mr Sirajo was found in a hospital on a drip. Mr Ishaku said Mr Sirajo recognized him because of his past record with the police. The ASP said Mr Sirajo had been arrested before for a robbery case.

According to him, Mr Sirajo agreed to help the police find other gang members. "Oga Douglas, you don’t need to worry. I will give you whatever you need to succeed in the case, to get other members arrested," the police officer quoted Mr Sirajo as saying.

Continuing his testimony, Mr Ishaku said Mr Sirajo called the other defendants to meet him at Dei Dei Bridge in Abuja for a new operation. The police used Mr Sirajo's vehicle to lure the four suspects. Mr Ishaku said this made the suspects think the other police in the vehicle were part of their gang.

One of the suspects, who allegedly called the eighth defendant to join the operation, was found with a knife when the police arrested him and the others. Some confessional statements from the arrested suspects linked the ninth and seventh defendants, while the seventh was already in police custody.

The 10th and 11th defendants were arrested in Kano for another operation. Investigations showed they were part of the Katampe robbery. Mr Ishaku said he followed the right steps when taking the confessional statements of all the defendants, including video recording and speaking in a language they understood.

He noted that the first to the sixth, 10th, and 11th defendants took part in the robbery in Katampe. He added that the seventh and eighth defendants are gang members. He also said the defendants were part of a group operating in various locations.

Mr Sirajo owned the pump-action gun, while Mr Hassan had the fabricated AK-47 that police recovered. In February, two witnesses, Sani Yusuf and Fatou Toborteh, both Ms Maduagwu’s neighbors, testified about the incident.

They said they heard female screams the night it happened. Both witnesses, who were also robbed, saw Ms Maduagwu with a serious head injury, and she was later confirmed dead at the hospital. They could not identify any of the robbers since they were masked that night.

After the incident, some reports claimed that Ms Maduagwu jumped from her apartment during the robbery. But in October 2025, Ifeanyi Maduagwu, her father, rejected claims that she fell while escaping, insisting she was murdered. Mr Maduagwu said the details around his daughter’s death "don’t add up."

“I know that my first daughter, Sommie Tochukwu Christelle Maduagwu, whom I gave birth to, would not have jumped from a three-storey building. For somebody to be telling me that she jumped, and one of the armed robbers claimed to have held her, and her weight was overwhelming for him, and she fell off, looks funny. I believe that my daughter was murdered."

Mr Ishaku’s statement that a defendant pushed Ms Maduagwu is new information, and future court hearings may reveal the identity of the suspect responsible. Before her death, Ms Maduagwu, 29, was well-known on Arise Television as a news anchor and also worked behind the scenes as a reporter and producer.