Kogi court remands 2 over N3m employment scam
A Lokoja Chief Magistrate’s Court has remanded two persons, Luka Samuel, 30, and Emmanuel Owobi, 33, in Federal Prisons, Koton-Karfe, for allegedly defrauding nine persons of N3 million with forged employment letters.
On arraignment, the duo were said to have between 2016 and 2017 duped the nine job seekers of N3m and issued them with forged National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) appointment letters.
The prosecuting counsel, E.S. Onu Esq. told the court that the accused, and another accomplices, including one Grace Owobi, now at large, fraudulently collected the money over a period of time totalling over N3m from the nine job seekers.
Onu gave the name of the victims as Musa Nasiru, Isah Rabiu, Musa Abdulmalik, Zekeri Aishetu, Samuel Atabo, Yahaya Paul Idakwo, Zekeri Husain, Yahaya Husain and Ladi Nicholas Amedu.
“You intentionally forged several fake appointment letters for them knowing quite well that the said appointment letters were forged as you purportedly regularised their appointments into the services of the NSCDC,” the prosecutor said.
They were charged with criminal conspiracy, forgery, wrongful gain and fraud contrary to and punishable under Section 1(2)(c) of the Miscellaneous Offences Act Cap M17 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
The offences, according to the prosecuting counsel, also ran contrary to sections 13, 97, 364 and 175 of the Penal Code.
Onu asked for custodian order for the accused to be remanded pending the resumption of the Federal High Court, Lokoja, which had the jurisdiction to try the case in the first place.
Counsel for the defence, Deborah Itanyi Esq. objected to the application for the custodian order, saying that though the court had no jurisdiction to try the case, it had discretion to grant bail in line with Section 341(1,2) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).
In his ruling, Chief Magistrate Levi Animoku said one of the offences alleged against the accused was under a federal law upon which he had no jurisdiction.