Justice Sikiru Oyinloye of the Kwara State High Court sitting in Ilorin on Friday, convicted and sentenced a 38-year-old lecturer at the Kwara State College of Health Technology Offa, Adebisi Ademola, to six months imprisonment over his involvement in love scam.
Ademola was among the 33 suspected internet fraudsters arrested on September 14, 2020 in Offa area of Kwara State. The defendant was prosecuted by the Ilorin Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a one-count charge bordering on romance scam.
“That you, Adebisi Ademola (a.k.a Dawn Ayero) sometime in September, 2020 or thereabout at Ilorin, Kwara State within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court attempted to commit an offence of cheating by personation by pretending and representing yourself to be a white lady called Dawn Ayero to one Donald Oakes who is purportedly in love with the said Donald Oakes as it is contained in your gmail account: dawnayero@gmail.com and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 95 of the Penal Code Laws of Northern Nigeria,” the charge read.
The defendant pleaded guilty to the charge when it was read to him. Following his ‘guilty plea’, counsel to the EFCC, Andrew Akoja, invited to the witness box, one Olumide Olasode, an operative of the Commission to review the facts of the case.
Consequently, Justice Oyinloye found Ademola guilty of the charge and accordingly sentenced him. He, however, gave him an option of fine of N50,000 (Fifty Thousand Naira). The judge in addition, ordered the forfeiture of convict’s phone, used as instrument to perpetrate the crime, to the Federal Government.
