Justice Mohammed Garba Umar of the Federal High Court
sitting in Gombe has sentenced 29 year-old Khalil Ahmed Bappa to two years in
prison for fraudulently extorting goods and money worth N267,000 from a female
student of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria.
Bappa, who claimed to be a Glo Ambassador, fraudulently
extorted the goods and money from Yusra Ali Babakusa, a student of the ABU,
with the assurances of making her a Glo Ambassador.
Standing trial for criminal charges bordering on Obtaining
by False Pretences, offences contrary to and punishable under Sections 1(2) and
1(3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act 2006 brought
against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Bappa
surprisingly changed his earlier innocence plea in court, and pleaded guilty to
the two count charge read to him.
The EFCC principal witness, Mohammed Abdullahi, while
reviewing facts of the case, narrated how Bappa sometime in 2012 presented
himself as a Glo agent, promising to help Yusra become a Glo Ambassador through
his contacts at Glo Communications.
Abdullahi stated that the accused person forwarded a code
number to Yusra with assurances that she would soon be called up as one of the
eventual winners and ambassador.
The convict also instructed her to send some money to him as
part of the facilitation process and further told her to prepare for an
interview trip to Glo head office in Lagos as her name had been selected; a
journey Khalil told her had been paid for by Glo, which include accommodation
and return flight ticket.
On the expected day of the journey, Khalil prompted her to
wait for him several times, but stopped answering her calls after a while and
eventually switched off his phone. It was when she made numerous attempts to
reach him many days after but failed that she realised she had been fooled.
The investigator also informed the court that Bappa was
invited; interviewed and volunteered his statement which confirmed
investigation’s position that he fraudulently collected money and materials
from the complainant.
Marrying the plea of the accused and the confessional
statement corroborated by the witness’ incontrovertible testimony, Alqasim
Ja’afar, prosecution counsel, applied that the accused be convicted as charged.
Relying on Section 11 of the Advanced Fee Fraud and other
Related Offences Act 2006, counsel further urged the court to compel the
accused to pay back to the victim the amount involved as stated in the charge.
In view of the evidence and exhibits tendered, the court convicted the accused
as charged.
Based on the passionate plea of allocutus by the defence
counsel Abubakar Imam, trial judge Justice Umar sentenced the convict to 12
months in prison without an option of fine on each of the two counts and the
terms would run concurrently from the date of arrest.
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