By Correspondent in Ilorin
The Ilorin Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), has arraigned a a corps member serving at the Jigawa State House of Assembly, Nazim Usman Gomna and a 400 level student of AL-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Idris Shuaibu Suleiman, over offences bordering on theft to the tune of N9.1million.
Nasim and Idris were arraigned for conspiracy and theft before Justice Sikiru Oyinloye of the Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin.
According to the prosecution, the two defendants conspired to hack into the website of the AL-Hikmah University and diverted students’ school fees to the tune N9.1million.
Nazim, who graduated as a Computer Scientist at the AL-Hikmah University, Ilorin, and currently serving in Jigawa State House of Assembly allegedly connived with Idris to hack the university’s website, using the latter’s account details (Idris) to be collecting tuition fees illegally from students.
The prosecution further told the court that Gomna and Suleiman, sometime betwee March, 2020 and May, 2020 at Ilorin, Kwara state, agreed amongst yourselves to do illegal act by stealing N9,118,500.00 (Nine Million, One Hundred and Eighteen Thousand, Five Hundred Naira Only), property of the Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin.
It said that by such act, the two defendants had committed an offence contrary to Section 96 of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 97 and 287 of the same Penal Code.”
The counsel to the EFCC, Sesan Ola,then asked the court for a date to commence trial and an order to remand the defendants in prison.
However, A.T Kamaldeen and Ismail Mustapha representing Nasim and Idris respectively, in their separate applications, urged the court to admit their clients to bail, pending trial and determination of the case.
Responding, Justice Oyinloye, in a bench ruling, admitted the defendants to bail in the sum of N3.5million each with one surety in like sum.
“The surety must be resident within the jurisdiction of this court and must provide the telephone contacts, residential address, recent passport photographs to the court”, the judge added.
The judge also ordered the defendants to submit their travel documents to the court and ordered them not to travel without the permission of the court, pending the determination of the case.
He further ordered the defendants to attend all court proceedings while the trial lasts or have their bail terms revoked.
In another development, the EFCC has secured the conviction of one Mohammed Abdulwahab Kelvin who pleaded guilty to a 3-count charge of romance scam preferred against him by the anti-graft agency.
According to prosecution, Mohammed Abdulwahab Kelvin (Jessica Carmen) sometime in December, 2020, in Ilorin attempted to cheat by pretending to be one Jessica Carmen,a white female with gmail account jessicacarmen440@gmail.com to induce one Mert Usul
The aim of the convict, the prosecution added, was to make payment to a car pick-up company while he had no intention to purchase any car and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 95 of the Penal Code and punishable under Section 324 of the same Penal Code.”
Delivering judgement in the case,, Justice Oyinloye said that from the evidence before the court, the defendant engaged in online romance scam, noting that, “the defendant did not testify, even when he had the opportunity to do so.”
The judge, after due evaluation of the evidence placed before the court and the allocutos by the defence counsel, sentenced Mohammed to six months imprisonment on each of the counts with an option of fine of N50,000 (Fifty Thousand Naira) on each count.
He ordered that the phone and laptop the convict used to perpetrate the crime be forfeited to the Federal Government.