EFCC drags suspect to court over alleged scamming of SAN

(NIGERIA) The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned a suspected imposture,Moses Olayemi before the High Court of Lagos State sitting in Ikeja.
The suspected imposture who was arraigned before Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo was alleged to have defrauded a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Aliyu Salman to the tune of N2.5 million.
Olayemi was alleged to have obtained the said sum from the senior lawyer under the guise that it was meant for  processing a Federal Government (FG) appointment.
The judge however threw out the bail application initiated by the suspect on the reason that he had a perchant for committing crime, said he did not deserve to be granted bail.
In the counter-affidavit filed in opposition to Olayemi's bail application, the anti-graft agency noted that the accused was not a first offender.
The EFCC maintained that It stated that the accused had a high tendency of abusing bail as exemplified by his attempt to escape from custody in Kano.
According the SAN's statement of claim, "Sometime in April 2013, I was going to Ibadan for an INEC case in the Federal High Court number one, when I received a GSM telephone call from a person who claimed to be one of the members of a committee who needed my CV because I was one of the people to be screened for a Federal Government appointment. I believed the information was genuine.
"I told the person that I was going to Ibadan and he advised me to go to a cyber cafe and produce the CV. He also asked me to send N150, 000, which would be used to get security report on me. I did,  but forgot the account I sent the money to."
The senior lawyer posited that after several conversations on phone, he had  sent  additional  N2.5m to an account belonging to one Moses Babatunde, with an addition that he paid the money believing it would help him get a better job.
The SAN explained that, "Later one Henry phoned me and said he is the chairman of the committee and asked me to send N2.5m to one Moses Babatunde Wale at Skye Bank. I instructed the Unity Bank, Ilorin to send the money to Wale's account number 10188788131. I sent the money because I believed the money is to get me a better job."
Salmon then said he became suspicious when the said Henry began to make further demand which he declined. The SAN said he was later told that the expected job had been given to someone else because of his failure to cooperate.
However in his statement of defence, the suspect who claimed to be a primary school leaver, and currently working as a draughtsman refuted that he did not collect any money from the SAN.
According to Olayemi, "One of my friends named Akpan called me and requested for an account from Skye Bank, and since I did not have one I collected that of my friend Babatunde Moses, who is also a friend and I gave it to Mr. Akpan before he forwarded it to Dr. Aliyu Salman for the payment of N2.5m."
Olayemi added that he was arrested when he went with Babatunde to a Skye Bank at Magodo to withdraw N1million from the money that Salman had paid.
The matter has been adjourned till January 26, 27 and 28, 2015 for trial.