NSCDC Clears Onoja, Dismisses Two Marshals Over Gun Supply

The NSCDC has cleared Mining Marshals Commander John Onoja Attah of explosive allegations over alleged fund diversion and the death of DSC Levi Agada, but the scandal is far from over. Two operatives have been dismissed for allegedly supplying firearms to illegal miners, while Agada’s widow is still pushing a N1.1 billion wrongful-death suit in…

Atlantic Post

August 5, 2026

3–5 minutes

Ahmed Audi, Illegal mining, John Onoja, Levi Agada, Mining Marshals, NSCDC

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) has formally cleared the Commander of its Mining Marshals, Assistant Commandant of Corps (ACC) John Onoja Attah, of allegations linking him to a purported N2 billion diversion and a cover-up surrounding the death of Deputy Superintendent of Corps (DSC) Levi Agada, even as the Corps dismissed two of its own operatives for allegedly supplying firearms to illegal miners.

The announcement sharpens one of the most sensitive internal security controversies now shadowing Nigeria’s anti-illegal mining campaign.

Speaking in Abuja on Wednesday, the Commandant-General of the NSCDC, Ahmed Audi, through the Corps’ spokesperson, Babawale Afolabi, said internal investigations found no evidence implicating Onoja or the management of the Mining Marshals Unit.

Audi said the allegations were “false and without factual basis”, while also insisting that investigators found no evidence of premeditated intent in relation to Agada’s death.

At the same time, the Corps said two members of the Mining Marshals Unit had been dismissed and recommended for prosecution over what it described as unlawful supply of firearms to illegal miners.

Premium Times reported that Audi said their conduct amounted to “grave misconduct, professional negligence and conduct prejudicial” to the Corps’ discipline and operational integrity.

The disciplinary action, according to the report, followed the operational incident of 18 February in Nasarawa State that led to Agada’s death.

This is the key tension in the case: the NSCDC has drawn a hard line between the commander’s exoneration and the punishment of two lower-ranking officers, signalling that it sees the misconduct allegations as separate from the wider accusations that have swirled around the fatal operation.

The Corps also said the latest sanctions formed part of wider disciplinary action affecting 79 personnel, with 37 dismissed and 42 others sanctioned for various offences.

Yet the matter is not merely administrative. The family of the late officer has already taken the dispute to court. Court papers filed before the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, allege that Agada was shot in the chest while on duty at Rafin Gabas, Agwada, Nasarawa State, in February 2026, later dying at the Federal Medical Centre, Keffi. The suit, filed by his widow, Mrs Lilian Achenyo Abraham, on behalf of herself, the estate and their two minor children, is seeking more than N1.1 billion in damages and a raft of disclosure orders.

According to the court filing reported by The African Gong, the family says the circumstances of the shooting remain “shrouded in controversy”. They allege that officers initially told them that bandits attacked the Mining Marshals Unit, but later evidence gathered from witnesses, medical personnel and officers who accompanied the deceased to hospital suggested the fatal shooting may have involved members of the unit itself.

The family is asking the court to compel the defendants to release Agada’s mobile phones, personal belongings, operational records, and the identities, ranks and service numbers of officers deployed with him.

The suit also seeks N1 billion as general damages for wrongful death and loss of dependency, plus special, aggravated and exemplary damages. The family says Agada was the primary breadwinner and that his death deprived his wife and children of financial, educational and social support.

The matter was said to have been fixed for mention on 15 July 2026, though the latest available report does not indicate whether the defendants had filed their responses.

Onoja, for his part, has repeatedly denied the allegations and cast them as a campaign to weaken the unit’s work against illegal mining syndicates.

In a separate Guardian report, he said: “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.”

He also alleged that foreign nationals affected by enforcement operations were bankrolling efforts to blackmail the unit. Those claims remain unproven in court.

The wider political and security significance is hard to miss. The Mining Marshals have become one of the federal government’s most visible enforcement tools against illegal mining, and Onoja recently said the unit had arrested 671 suspected illegal miners, charged 397 before the Federal High Court and secured several convictions.

He also said sector revenue had risen sharply as enforcement tightened. Against that backdrop, the latest exoneration may steady the command structure, but it will not end the public demand for clarity over how one of the unit’s own officers died during an operation.

For now, the NSCDC’s position is clear: Onoja has been cleared, two officers have been sacked, and the Corps says its internal investigations found no evidence to support the most serious allegations. But with a civil suit pending, a death still disputed by the victim’s family, and allegations of firearm supply and operational cover-up still circulating in public discourse, the scandal around the Mining Marshals is far from closed.