The Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday received testimony regarding how Department of State Services (DSS) operatives successfully tracked and arrested an individual responsible for sending deadly threats to some elite schools in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
According to the Secret Police, the suspect had allegedly threatened to kill students and teachers the affected schools, thereby causing significant security concern among parents and residents of the nation’s capital city.
In his testimony before court, a DSS operative, Michael Jego, revealed that the Agency received formal complaints from three Abuja schools in 2024, indicating that they received threatening text messages from unknown phone numbers, warning of impending attacks aimed at killing students and teachers, as well as destroying school property.
Jego, who testified as the first prosecution witness (PW1) in the ongoing trial of one John Agbo, said recovered from the suspect was a Techno android phone, allegedly used by him to send the threat messages
Agbo, identified with the full name John Jude Agbo, was arraigned on March 17, 2026, on a two-count charge, marked: FHC/ABJ?CR/06/2026, is being prosecuted by the DSS under the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act 2022 and the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) (Amendment) Act, 2024.
In a case summary filed in court, the DSS said the defendant is “standing trial on charges of using the instrumentality of his GSM numbers: 08124412783, 08069781274, 08105715028 and 09139681108 to send SMS to some schools in Abuja.”
Lists among the schools that Agbo allegedly sent the threat messages to are Premier International School, The Regent Secondary School and Oakland International British School with the DSS saying the suspect’s text messages, “threatened to attack the schools and kill both students and teachers”, boasting that it wouldn’t take them up to a minute to achieve that.
Furthermore, the DSS said the act constituted offences contrary to Section 24 (1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022 and Section 18 (1) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) (Amendment) Act, 2024.
While giving testimony in court under the guidance of prosecuting attorney, Dr. Calistus Eze, the DSS operative explained that his unit was assigned to investigate a formal complaint (petition) filed by Oakland International School on November 28, 2024, adding that in the course of investigation, the team deployed forensics and apprehended the defendant in Otukpo in Benue State.
Jego further stated that a mobile phone and a SIM card were recovered from Agbo, who was eventually brought to Abuja and he volunteered his statement in the presence of a lawyer from the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria (LACN) when interviewed.
The prosecution formally submitted crucial incriminating evidence: the recovered Techno android phone, school petitions, and a compact disc providing audiovisual documentation of the defendant’s confession process and statement-taking sessions among others.
In the absence of objection from the defence lawyer, Hamza Dantani, the court admitted all the documents and items in evidence, even as the defendant, who confirmed being familiar with the Techno android phone, denied being the owner.
Under intense cross-examination by defense counsel Dantani, Jego told the Court that his organization initiated their investigation following formal written complaints submitted by the schools, adding that none of these petitions explicitly mentioned the defendant’s name’
Also explaining that the petitioners, who initiated the complaints, provided the specific phone numbers and text messages used in the alleged threats, Jego said he was not in a position to know if the phone numbers belonged to the defendant, but that the defendant admitted being among those that composed the dangerous text messages.
Testifying further, the witness said upon arrest, Agbo was found in direct possession of the mobile phone, which was promptly recovered from him, just as he voluntarily admitted his involvement in composing the threatening text messages.
Following the conclusion of the cross-examination, the prosecution counsel Eze requested a formal adjournment from the court, stating the need to produce additional witnesses and further evidentiary exhibits.
With the defence attorney Dantani raising no objection to this request, the presiding Judge, Justice Joyce Abdulmalik thereafter adjourned the case to May 12 for continuation of trial.
