In a dramatic breakthrough, the Nigeria Police Force has unmasked and dismantled a deadly cross-border gun-running syndicate responsible for the gruesome killing of ARISE News anchor, Somtochukwu Maduagwu, in Abuja.
The revelation came on Friday after the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command confirmed the arrest of 12 suspects linked to the September 29 armed robbery and murder that shook the nation’s media community.
According to the FCT Police spokesperson, SP Josephine Adeh, preliminary investigations uncovered that the gang sourced their weapons including an AK-47 rifle, a pump-action gun, and a pistol from an arms dealer based in the Niger Republic.
“All the suspects, drawn from Kaduna and Katsina States, have confessed to obtaining their weapons from a yet-to-be-identified supplier in Niger Republic,” Adeh disclosed.
The suspects which include: Shamsudeen Hassan, Hassan Isah, Abubakar Alkamu, Sani Sirajo, Mashkur Jamilu, Suleiman Badamasi, Abdulsalam Saleh, Zaharadeen Muhammad, Musa Adamu, Sumayya Mohammed, Isah Abdulrahman, and Musa Umar were rounded up in a series of coordinated sting operations across the FCT, Nasarawa, and Kaduna States.
The gang, according to the police, terrorized several parts of Abuja before the Katampe Extension attack, carrying out robberies in Katampe 1, a hotel in Apo, and another in Zuba.
During the violent invasion of Unique Apartments, Katampe Extension, security guard Barnabas Danlami was shot dead, while Maduagwu, in a desperate attempt to escape, leaped from her apartment window, sustaining fatal injuries.
“Further investigations confirmed that the fatal shot that killed the security guard, Mr. Barnabas Danlami, was fired by one of the suspects, Shamsudeen Hassan,” Adeh said.
Following the murder, FCT Commissioner of Police, CP Ajao S. Adewale, launched a Special Investigation Team led by DCP Aliyu Abubakar and assisted by ACP Victor Godfrey, with a clear mandate to track down and neutralize the criminal network behind the attack.
The team reportedly leveraged digital reconstructive intelligence and high-level surveillance to dismantle the syndicate’s operational chain.
“The Command is relentless in its mission to bring every accomplice to justice and choke off the illicit arms trade feeding violent crimes in the nation’s capital,” Adeh stated.
Authorities have renewed calls for residents to remain vigilant and promptly report suspicious activities via the FCT emergency hotlines.
Nigeria continues to face a surge in illegal arms inflow from neighboring nations, particularly Niger, Chad, and Cameroon. A United Nations report once warned that about 350 million of West Africa’s 500 million small arms are concentrated within Nigeria, a reality now violently underscored by the tragic death of one of the nation’s brightest broadcast journalists.
