The death of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Deputy Superintendent of Corps (DSC) Agada Levi Agada during an anti-illegal-mining operation in Nasarawa State has evolved from a reported operational casualty into a widening institutional controversy involving competing narratives, police investigations, arrests of serving security personnel, allegations of interference, a disputed financial claim, and a N1.1 billion civil action.
At the heart of the dispute is a deceptively simple question: what exactly happened to Agada Levi at Rafin Gabas in Agwada, Nasarawa State, in February 2026?
His family says it still does not have a satisfactory answer.
More than five months after the officer was fatally wounded, his relatives say important questions remain unresolved over the circumstances of the shooting, the identities and roles of officers present at the operation, the conflicting accounts initially given to his family and, crucially, the whereabouts of two mobile phones belonging to the deceased.
The family’s concerns have gained renewed relevance amid an increasingly bitter confrontation between the NSCDC Mining Marshals and elements of the Nigeria Police Force, particularly following the July arrest of Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Abdulmajeed Abisoye Oyewumi over allegations connected with Chinese nationals facing illegal-mining charges.
But the family insists that the Oyewumi affair is not the original issue.
Their demand is that the death of Agada Levi must be investigated on its own merits and that no subsequent criminal case should eclipse the question of how an NSCDC officer received the gunshot wound that eventually killed him.
The controversy has already reached the courts. In June, Agada’s widow, Lilian Achenyo Abraham, suing for herself, the estate of the deceased and their two minor children, filed a suit at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, seeking more than N1.1 billion in damages against the NSCDC, Commandant-General Ahmed Audi, Mining Marshals Commander Attah John Onoja and other officers.
What follows is a reconstruction of the known chronology, the competing accounts and the unanswered questions that now sit at the centre of the controversy.
The February operation that changed everything
Agada, a member of the NSCDC Mining Marshals, was deployed to the Agyaragu/Rafin Gabas axis of Nasarawa State as part of operations targeting illegal mining.
According to accounts contained in the family’s legal representations and subsequent reports, the operation ended with Agada sustaining a gunshot wound to the chest. He was taken first to a medical facility and later transferred to the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi, where he died from his injuries.
The initial information supplied to his relatives, however, has become one of the most contentious aspects of the case.
Paul Agada, the deceased officer’s elder brother, said the family was informed on 19 February, a day after the operation, that armed men had attacked the Mining Marshals team.
The family was reportedly told that several officers had been killed instantly, while Agada had survived and was receiving treatment.
That account initially appeared straightforward: a security officer had been wounded in an armed attack and subsequently died.
But according to the family, a different story began to emerge.
Relatives subsequently received explanations that did not correspond with the first account. At one point, the family was reportedly told that Agada had participated in an “illegal duty”. The family says yet another version emerged concerning the fate of the other officers allegedly involved in the operation.
“We were hearing different stories from the same organisation. At that point, we realised we needed to find out for ourselves what actually happened,” Paul said.
That divergence, more than anything else, appears to have transformed the family’s grief into a prolonged search for evidence.
What happened to the other officers?
One of the central inconsistencies identified by the family concerns the alleged fate of other members of the Mining Marshals team.
In one account cited in the family’s petition, officers allegedly told the family that bandits had attacked Agada and five other NSCDC personnel, with the other five killed at the scene.
Because the deceased officers were Muslims, the family was reportedly told they were buried immediately according to Islamic rites.
Yet the family later received another account suggesting that the other officers had not been killed at all but had instead been arrested or detained.
The significance of that contradiction is obvious.
If the first account is accurate, investigators would need to establish the identity of the attackers, the precise location of the ambush, the weapons used, the number of casualties and the circumstances under which Agada survived.
If the second account is accurate, the investigative focus changes dramatically.
It would raise questions about the identities of the officers detained, why they were detained, what happened during the operation and whether Agada was shot by an external assailant or by somebody within the security operation.
Those are factual questions that cannot responsibly be settled by allegations or competing press statements.
They require operational logs, deployment records, statements from every surviving member of the team, ballistic evidence, medical records, communications data and, where available, scene reconstruction.
The phone mystery
For the family, one of the most troubling unanswered issues is not simply who fired the fatal shot but what happened to Agada’s mobile phones immediately afterwards.
Paul said the family was told by medical personnel that Agada remained conscious after the shooting and repeatedly asked for his phone so that he could speak to his wife.
One reported account attributed to medical personnel was that Agada repeatedly said:
“Give me my phone. I want to speak with my wife.”
The family says similar information was subsequently received from personnel at FMC Keffi.
If accurately documented, such a statement could have enormous investigative relevance.
A phone belonging to a critically injured officer could contain calls, messages, photographs, location information, recordings or other digital evidence from the period before and immediately after the shooting.
It could establish whom he communicated with, where he had been, whether he received any warning before the incident, whether members of the team contacted him afterwards and whether anyone attempted to alter or remove material from the device.
Yet the family says the phones have not been returned.
A May report based on the family’s petition similarly stated that two mobile phones remained in the custody of the Mining Marshals despite repeated requests and an undertaking allegedly made by ACC Onoja to return them.
That allegation is particularly important because the family does not regard the devices simply as personal property.
They believe they may constitute potential evidence.
“Our question has remained the same,” Paul said. “How did my brother’s phone leave the village and end up with a commander in Abuja while he was still alive asking for it? That question has never been answered.”
There is no public evidence establishing precisely where the phones are today or whether investigators have subjected them to forensic examination.
That is one of the gaps an independent investigation should close.
The police investigation and three arrests
The matter eventually moved beyond internal NSCDC processes and into the Nigeria Police Force’s Force Intelligence Department.
Three Mining Marshals officers — Simeon Yakubu Anyebe, Ibrahim Ayefu and ASC Iwodi Obochi — were reported arrested in connection with the investigation into Agada’s death.
Police sources also claimed that investigators had traced more than N2 billion in transactions to the Zenith Bank account of Sergeant Jibril Labaran, another NSCDC Mining Marshals operative linked to the investigation.
A police source was quoted as saying:
“We traced over N2 billion into the Zenith Bank account of Sergeant Labaran…”
That allegation dramatically escalated the controversy.
But the financial claim was subsequently rejected by the Mining Marshals.
The unit said an examination of the relevant account showed credits of about N760,457.25 and debits of approximately N760,129.85 over the preceding year, and argued that the viral N2 billion allegation was false.
The Mining Marshals described the report as “false and misleading” and accused elements within the police of attempting to undermine the unit.
The conflicting financial narratives illustrate precisely why this case should not be adjudicated through media statements.
A bank statement, transaction schedule, certified forensic account report and evidence linking particular transactions to particular alleged offences would settle the question far more effectively than accusations traded between institutions.
Onoja demands a different investigation
Mining Marshals Commander Attah John Onoja has repeatedly denied wrongdoing by the unit’s leadership.
In June, he challenged the reported police findings and formally sought the transfer of the investigation into Agada’s death to the Department of State Services, arguing that the matter required an impartial review. (P
“Hence, my letter to the IGP requesting the matter be transferred to DSS for impartial review and handling. The modest thing to do was for the police to transfer the case to DSS,” Onoja said.
He also insisted that the Mining Marshals leadership had no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Agada’s death.
“We are not denying that Agada Levi died in the line of duty, sadly. But none of the Management Team of Mining Marshals knows anything about his death,” Onoja said.
Onoja said the unit supported the bereaved family and organised Agada’s burial. He also said friends and associates raised N3 million for the officer’s widow.
The family’s acceptance of burial assistance, however, does not resolve the substantive question of liability.
Financial assistance after the death of a security officer cannot substitute for a transparent determination of how that officer died.
The N2 billion allegation becomes a second controversy
The disputed bank-account allegation has become a useful illustration of how the Agada case has become entangled with a much larger struggle between law-enforcement institutions.
The Mining Marshals said Labaran’s account did not contain the figures being publicly circulated. It also accused a Police Force Intelligence Department team associated with CSP Oyewumi of interfering with its anti-illegal-mining operations.
The police side, meanwhile, has not publicly provided a complete forensic financial dossier capable of allowing the public to independently assess the N2 billion claim.
That distinction matters.
An allegation that money moved through a bank account is not, by itself, proof of corruption or complicity in a homicide.
Equally, a denial by the accused institution is not proof that the allegation is false.
A credible investigation would need to produce the underlying banking evidence, establish the beneficial owners of the relevant accounts and identify the purpose and origin of any suspicious transfers.
Then came CSP Oyewumi
By July, the dispute had taken another dramatic turn.
The Mining Marshals arrested CSP Abdulmajeed Abisoye Oyewumi over allegations that he helped Chinese nationals facing illegal-mining charges evade prosecution.
The defendants were being tried in Charge No. FHC/ABJ/CR/131/2025 before Justice M. S. Liman of the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division.
The Mining Marshals alleged that two defendants had escaped through the Nigeria-Cameroon border before 3 June and that Oyewumi and other officers had facilitated their movement.
The agency further alleged that another defendant, Ren Quan Chen, was being helped to escape before the court issued a bench warrant.
According to the Mining Marshals, operatives subsequently traced Chen to an apartment in Apo Legislative Quarters, Abuja, where they found Oyewumi, a Chinese woman identified as Sun Hui and Inspector Kingsley Monkap.
The Mining Marshals alleged that investigators recovered live ammunition, suspected minerals, bank records and electronic devices from the property.
Onoja described the alleged conduct as serious and said a person helping an accused defendant evade justice could be considered “an accessory after the fact”.
These remain allegations unless and until established in court.
But the arrest transformed what had been a dispute largely confined to the death of an NSCDC officer into a far wider confrontation involving the Police, Mining Marshals and alleged illegal-mining networks.
Civil society fears Agada’s death is being forgotten
The National Civil Society Council of Nigeria subsequently intervened, warning that the investigation into Agada’s death should not be overshadowed by the Oyewumi case.
Its Executive Director, Ambassador Blessing Akinlosotu, argued that any investigation of Oyewumi should proceed according to law but should not displace the investigation into the death that triggered many of the disputes.
“The death of Officer Agada is the central issue. Any investigation into other persons, no matter how significant, must not replace or overshadow the search for those responsible for his death,” the council said.
Akinlosotu specifically called for an independent, transparent and impartial investigation supervised by appropriate federal oversight institutions.
That intervention is significant because it captures the central public-interest question.
It is entirely possible for allegations against Oyewumi to be investigated and for Agada’s death to be investigated properly.
One does not have to cancel the other.
The NSCDC’s internal findings
The NSCDC has also taken disciplinary steps in the broader matter.
The Corps has maintained that its internal investigation did not implicate Onoja or other members of the Mining Marshals management in wrongdoing.
It has also disputed allegations of a cover-up and defended the conduct of its leadership.
At the same time, the Corps’ disciplinary process has reportedly resulted in sanctions against personnel for various infractions, including the dismissal of two Mining Marshals officers who were recommended for prosecution over allegations that they supplied firearms to illegal miners.
The distinction is important.
Disciplinary action against personnel for unrelated or operational infractions does not necessarily answer the question of who fired the shot that killed Agada.
Nor does an internal exoneration automatically resolve questions raised by the family or a separate police investigation.
It simply establishes the position reached by one institution through its internal process.
The N1.1 billion lawsuit
The legal action filed by Agada’s widow gives the dispute another independent avenue for testing the evidence.
The family’s lawsuit, identified as Suit No. CV/2458/26, names the NSCDC, Commandant-General Ahmed Audi, Onoja and other personnel as defendants and seeks more than N1.1 billion in damages. (The African Gong)
The family’s case reportedly alleges that Agada sustained a gunshot wound during the Rafin Gabas operation and that inconsistent official explanations surrounded the circumstances of his death.
It also seeks access to information and operational records relevant to determining the circumstances surrounding the shooting. (The African Gong)
That court process may ultimately become the most important mechanism for forcing the competing narratives into an evidentiary framework.
Unlike public statements, litigation creates mechanisms for documentary disclosure, sworn testimony and testing of evidence through cross-examination.
The evidence that could answer the questions
The mystery surrounding Agada Levi’s death need not remain unsolved.
There are identifiable categories of evidence capable of establishing a factual chronology.
First are deployment records. Who authorised the operation? Which officers were assigned? What weapons were issued? What vehicles were used? What was the planned objective?
Then there are communications records. Radio logs, telephone metadata, WhatsApp messages and operational communications could establish when the team arrived, when the shooting occurred and who communicated with whom immediately afterwards.
Then comes the ballistic evidence.
The fatal bullet, firearm inventories, ammunition records and weapons carried by every member of the operation should be capable of being compared through forensic examination.
The medical evidence is equally crucial.
Agada’s clinical notes, transfer records, doctors’ observations, surgical findings and death certificate could establish the nature, direction and likely range of the gunshot injury and the sequence of medical treatment.
Then there is the disputed mobile-phone evidence.
If the devices remain in official custody, their forensic integrity should be preserved and their chain of custody documented. If they have been examined, investigators should be able to establish when, by whom and under what authority the extraction occurred.
If they have not been examined, that omission itself demands an explanation.
Finally, there are the statements.
The three Mining Marshals officers reportedly arrested by the police made statements to investigators. The family says members of the investigative process recorded them. Those statements should be assessed alongside testimony from surviving personnel, medical staff and local witnesses.
The objective should not be to construct a narrative around a preferred suspect.
It should be to reconstruct the event minute by minute.
The most troubling issue is institutional fragmentation
The Agada case exposes a recurring problem within Nigeria’s security architecture: when multiple law-enforcement institutions become parties to the same controversy, the investigation itself can become contested terrain.
The NSCDC has one narrative.
The police have another.
The family has its own account based on what it says it was told by officers and medical personnel.
Civil society organisations have raised additional concerns.
And the courts are now being asked to determine questions arising from the death.
That is precisely the point at which an investigation should be moved beyond institutional rivalry.
The death of a serving security officer cannot become a turf war between agencies.
Nor should the identity of the agency investigating the matter determine the credibility of the result.
An impartial investigation would need to be sufficiently independent that neither the NSCDC nor the Police could reasonably be accused of controlling its direction.
What Agada’s family is really asking for
The family’s demand, when stripped of the competing allegations surrounding illegal mining, police operations and institutional rivalry, is straightforward.
They want to know how their relative died.
They want the conflicting accounts reconciled.
They want the identities and statements of the officers who were present examined.
They want the medical evidence properly interpreted.
They want the operational records disclosed where lawful.
And they want Agada’s phones returned or formally examined under a documented evidentiary procedure.
Paul said the family was not seeking to convict anyone through the media.
That distinction is critical.
A family demanding answers is not the same thing as a court finding guilt.
Nor should allegations contained in petitions, investigative reports or press statements be treated as established facts before competent authorities have tested them.
But the opposite principle is equally important: the absence of a conviction is not a justification for the absence of investigation.
The unanswered questions
More than five months after Agada’s death, at least several questions remain central to the public-interest inquiry.
Who fired the bullet that fatally wounded him?
Were the five other officers allegedly present during the operation killed, detained or otherwise accounted for?
What precisely did the Mining Marshals team encounter at Rafin Gabas?
Why were different accounts allegedly communicated to members of Agada’s family?
What happened to Agada’s mobile phones immediately after he was wounded?
Who took custody of the devices?
Were they ever forensically examined?
What happened to the officers arrested by the Police?
What did their statements contain?
What is the actual evidence behind the N2 billion financial allegation, and what evidence supports the Mining Marshals’ rejection of it?
Was any security officer negligent, reckless or criminally responsible for the events surrounding Agada’s death?
And, perhaps most importantly, can Nigerians trust the investigation if agencies implicated in the competing narratives are allowed to investigate themselves?
The bigger national-security question
Agada Levi was not a private citizen caught in an unexplained roadside shooting.
He was a serving security officer deployed on an official operation.
When such an officer dies under disputed circumstances, the matter carries consequences beyond one grieving family.
Every police officer, soldier, civil-defence officer and intelligence operative deployed into dangerous terrain must have confidence that the institution will establish the truth if something goes wrong.
The opposite is equally true.
Where an agency’s own personnel are accused, the public must know that institutional loyalty will not be allowed to override accountability.
The controversy surrounding Agada’s death therefore represents a test of Nigeria’s security-accountability architecture.
The country does not need another war of press releases between security agencies.
It needs evidence.
It needs chain of custody.
It needs forensic reconstruction.
It needs transparent legal processes.
And ultimately, it needs an answer to one question that has remained painfully persistent since February:
Who was responsible for the death of DSC Agada Levi Agada?
Until that question is answered on the basis of verifiable evidence, the disappearance of his phones, the conflicting accounts of the operation and the competing investigations will continue to fuel suspicion.
And for his family, the burial may have ended months ago.
The search for the truth clearly has not.
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