court
Judiciary Justice
Man Jailed
court
Judiciary Justice
Man Jailed One Year in Makurdi for N60,000
Fraud
Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon of the Federal High Court, Makurdi,
Benue State on Tuesday, 10, 2019, sentenced one Moses Abah Ijiga to
one year imprisonment, with N100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Naira)
option of fine for employment scam to the tune of N60,000 (Sixty
Thousand Naira) only.
The convict was prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC), Makurdi Zonal Office on amended one-count charge
of fraudulent impersonation.
The charge reads: “That you, Moses Abah Ijiga, sometime in
November, 2019 at Makurdi, within the jurisdiction of this
honourable court, did by false pretences and with intent to
defraud, obtained from one Mathew Angyer the sum of N60,000 (Sixty
Thousand Naira) only, under the pretext of giving him a job with
the Nigeria Police Force as a constable and thereby committed an
offence contrary to Section 1(1)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and
Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section
1(3) of the same Act.”
He pleaded guilty to the one-count charge, upon which
prosecuting counsel, Mary Onoja urged the court to accept a plea
bargain agreement he entered with the prosecution and convict him
accordingly, having refunded the said sum of N60,000.00 (Sixty
Thousand Naira) to his victim.
Ijiga’s road to prison began when he was arrested by the EFCC
following a petition from the victim, who stated that the convict
came to their house sometime in 2017 and introduced himself as
Moses Onoja, a pharmacist, and that he needed financial assistance
to attend a job interview in Abuja, for which they contributed
N3000,00 and gave him for transportation.
He further stated that in early November, 2019, the convict,
whom they could no longer recognize, came to their house and
introduced himself as Moses Ijiga, a police officer of the rank of
ASP, who works with a retiring Deputy Inspector General of Police,
DIG, and that his boss needed to fill the employment slots,
allotted to him by the Nigeria Police Force, and that he wished to
nominated someone from the family to his boss for recruitment as a
constable in Nigeria Police Force to demonstrate his gratitude to
the family for the N3000,00 it gave him for transportation to Abuja
in 2017.
The victim said the family nominated one the siblings as its
candidate, after which the convict started making financial demands
to cover costs for training kits, documentations and medical
report, for which the sum of N60,000 (Sixty Thousand Naira) was
paid to him through the bank account of one Usman Danladi.
Investigations, however, revealed that the convict was a
commercial motorcycle rider (okada rider) and a farmer, who
confessed in the course of investigation that he lied to get money
from the family.
Wilson Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity