How Arise News journalist Somtochukwu Maduagwu was killed during armed robbery – Police witness

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

Douglas Ishaku, an assistant superintendent of police (ASP) who is the fourth prosecution witness in the trial of 11 suspects linked to the attack, also said one of the robbers shot Barnabas Danlami, a security guard at the residence, to death during the armed robbery operation. The incident took place at Ms Maduagwu’s house in 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, countering widely travelled narrative that Ms Maduagwu jumped to death on her own in a burst of anxiety to escape from the robbers.

Mr Ishaku did not identify the suspect who pushed Ms Maduagwu but identified the one who allegedly shot the security guard.

“During the investigation, we found out that the first defendant (Shamsu Hassan) was the one who shot the security man,” Mr Ishaku said.

In January, the police arraigned 11 suspects for murder of 29-year-old Ms Madaugwu and armed robbery that took place during the 29 September 2025 incident.

The defendants include Shamsu Hassan, Sani Sirajo, Hassan Isah, Abubakar Alkamu, Abdulsalam Saleh, and Suleiman Badamasi.

The rest are Zaharadeen Mohammed, Musa Umar, Mashkur Jamil, Suleiman Sani, and Abubakar Usman.

More details on how the defendants were arrested

Mr Ishaku also told the court how the police arrested the 11 defendants. His testimony is similar to that of the third prosecution witness, Maxwell Eje, who is also an ASP and member of the team that led the investigations into the alleged robbery case.

In April, Mr Eje said the first defendant, Mr Hassan, told them of the second defendant, Mr Sirajo’s whereabouts.

Mr Sirajo led them to where arms used for the operation were hidden, both Messrs Eje and Ishaku said in their separate testimonies.

They both noted that some of the defendants confessed to the crime.

On Tuesday, Mr Ishaku said human intelligence and digital analysis were used to arrest the defendants.

He said Mr Hassan fled to Zaria after the operation..

He said the suspect confessed to the crime after he was eventually arrested in Zaria.

The witness added that the suspect disclosed the second defendant’s location.

According to the witness, the second defendant, Mr Sirajo, was found in a hospital on drip.

Mr Ishaku said Mr Sirajo instantly him because of his previous record with the police.

The ASP told the court that the police previously arrested Mr Sirajo regarding a robbery case.

According to him, Mr Sirajo agreed to cooperate with the police to provide information that could aid the arrest of the 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.

Police disguise to arrest other suspects

Testifying further, the police officer said Mr Sirajo called the third to sixth defendants on the phone to inform them of a new operation and asked them to meet him at Dei Dei Bridge in Abuja.

The police gave their vehicle to Mr Sirajo, who assumed the driver’s position to lure the four suspects. The recovered arms also made the suspects believe that other police in the vehicle were part of the gang, Mr Ishaku said.

Mr Isgaku said one of the suspects, who allegedly called the eighth defendant to join the operation, was found with a knife when the police arrested him alongside the other four.

Confessional statements of some of the arrested suspects was said to have implicated the ninth and seventh defendants at the time the seventh was already in police custody.

As for the 10th and 11th defendants, they were said to be arrested in Kano for another operation.

The police officer said investigations revealed they were part of the Katampe apartment incident.

Mr Ishaku said he followed the necessary protocol for taking the confessional statements of all the defendants, including video recording, cautionary words and speaking in a language they understood.

Two defendants not at the site of the Katampe incident

Mr Ishaku also noted that the first to the sixth defendants, 10th and 11th defendants, partook in the armed robbery incident “that took place in Katampe.”

He added that “the seventh and eighth defendants are gang members.”

He also told the court that investigations revealed that the defendants were all part of a syndicate operating in various places.

He said Mr Sirajo owned the pump-action gun, and Mr Hassan owned the fabricated AK-47 that the police had recovered.

Previous testimonies

In February, two witnesses, Sani Yusuf and Fatou Toborteh, who were both Ms Maduagwu’s neighbours at the Unique Apartment, Katampe, took turns to testify about the incident.

In their separate testimonies, they said they both heard female screams the night the incident happened.

Both witnesses, who were robbed that night, recalled seeing Ms Maduagwu with a serious head injury. They said she was later confirmed dead at the hospital.

However, they said they could not identify any of the defendants because the robbers were masked on the night of the robbery.

After the robbery incident, there were reports that Ms Maduagwu jumped from the from her apartment in the two-storey building when the robbery operation was going on.

However, in October 2025, Ifeanyi Maduagwu, the father of Ms Maduagwu, in an interview with BBC Igbo, rejected claims that his daughter fell to her death while escaping armed robbers, insisting she was murdered.

Mr Maduagwu insisted that the accounts surrounding his daughter’s death “don’t add up”.

READ ALSO: Minna’s Cell of Death: Survivors recount how 37 mining suspects died in NSCDC custody

“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 testimony that one of the defendants pushed Ms Maduagwu is a new development, and subsequent court proceedings may reveal the identity of the alleged suspect who committed the crime

Ms Maduagwu, a face of Arise TV

Until her death, 29-year-old Ms Maduagwu, a lawyer, was regular face on Arise Television, where she served as a news anchor, presenting news broadcasts for the network.

She also served as a reporter and producer, working worked behind the scenes to help put news segments and programmes together.