A Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin has sentenced one Jamiu Isiaka to 28 years in the Mandala Correctional Centre in Ilorin for impersonating presidential spokesman Femi Adesina to conduct fraud against a South Korean national.
The defendant was arraigned on four charges by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s Ilorin Zonal Command on June 14, 2019, to which he pled not guilty.
Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar, who handed down his decision on Thursday, said the prosecution had presented enough evidence to persuade the court that the defendant was guilty as charged.
Isiaka was found guilty of the accusations and was sentenced to seven years in jail on each count, which will be served concurrently.
The judge ordered that some properties recovered from the offender, which were proceeds of his illegal activities, be forfeited to the federal government.
A four-bedroom bungalow in Oke-Foma, Ilorin; a Toyota Corolla automobile; plasma television; home theater; freezer; generator; washing machine; and an LG air conditioner were among the forfeited properties.
In addition, the court ruled that the victim of the crime gets reparation.
The prosecution said that Isiaka pretended to be Femi Adesina, the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, as well as Maikanti Baru, the late Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, in order to defraud Keun Sig Kim, a South Korean, of N30 million.
The prisoner tricked the foreign person by posing as a senior government official and collecting various quantities of money under the guise of obtaining for his victim a NNPC authorized marketing form and licensing certificate to acquire crude oil in Nigeria, according to the court.
During questioning, the defendant said that he used the funds to perform a sacrifice for the petitioner.
Part of the money, he claims, was used to purchase a vulture, elephant skin, elephant intestine, a lion’s skull, and a gorilla’s liver, all of which were used as ingredients in the sacrifice.
During the trial, EFCC counsel O. B. Akinsola called two witnesses, including Dare Folarin, a police detective, who described how the defendant was apprehended and several fraudulent funds traced to his bank accounts.
The prosecutor presented evidence of how the defendant received $88,521 from his victim while claiming to be assisting him in obtaining an approval form from the NNPC.
He claimed the crime violated section 1(1)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Offences Act, 2006.
NAN
