Azeez Yakubu Afolayan, who posed as the Comptroller General of the
Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd) to defraud desperate
Nigerians looking for jobs, has been charged by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
Azeez Yakubu Afolayan |
Afolayan was arraigned on Thursday before Justice M. Abdulgafar of the
Kwara State High Court for executing a jab scam and collecting money
from victims under false pretence.
He was slammed with a four-count charge.
Trouble started for him when a staff of the Customs Service, Hasaan
Garba Muhammed petitioned the EFCC, accusing him of defrauding innocent
Nigerians, seeking employment into the Service. He had so far defrauded
them of about N1, 000, 000 (One Million Naira) only.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Yakubu Azeez Afolayan, between
the months of November 2018 and January 2019 in Ilorin, within the
jurisdiction of this honourable court, with the intent to defraud,
obtained the gross sum of N267,000 (Two Hundred and Sixty-seven Thousand
Naira) only from one Usman Janet Opeyemi through your UBA account
number under the false pretence that you are capable of securing
employment for her son with the Nigerian Customs Services; the
representation you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence
contrary to Section 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 “not guilty” to the charge.
Counsel for the EFCC, Andrew Akoja, urged the court to give a date
for trial for prosecution to prove its case, and to order the remand of
the defendant in prison.
Counsel for the defendant, A.A. Raheem, however, moved an oral application for bail, which was turned down by the Judge.
Justice Abdulgafar, thereafter, ordered that the defendant be
remanded in Oke-Kura Prison, and adjourned to March 19, 2019 for hearing
of the bail application.
No comments:
Post a Comment