How we arrested man who threatened to kill students,

From Molly Kilete, Abuja

A Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday, heard how operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) trailed and apprehended a man who sent several messages to some elite schools in Abuja schools, threatening to kill their students and teachers.

An operative of the DSS, Michael Jego, told the court that his agency received petitions from three schools in Abuja in 2024 about text messages from some telephone numbers, with threat to kill students and teachers, and destroy property in the affected schools.

Jego spoke on Friday while testifying as the first prosecution witness (PW1) in the ongoing trial of Agbo, in whose possession the witness said a Techno android phone, allegedly used by the suspect, identified as John Jude Agbo, to send the threat messages, was recovered.

Agbo, who was arraigned on March 17 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.

The DSS, in a case summary filed in court, 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.”

The secret police listed Premier International School, The Regent Secondary School and Oakland International British School, as the schools Agbo sent the threat messages.

The defendant was said to have, in the text messages, “threatened to attack the schools and kill both students and teachers,” stressing that it wouldn’t take them up to a minute to achieve that.

The DSS stated that 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.