Man bags 3 years jail term over employment scam

Justice Dairus Khobo, of the Kaduna State High Court, on Wednesday sentenced a man, Mustapha Saminu, 45, to three years imprisonment for N5 million employment scam.

Saminu was charged with the crime by the Kaduna Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Dairus sentenced the defendant, after he pleaded guilty to the charge and begged for leniency

The judge, who did not give the convict an option of fine, ruled that the sentence should run concurrently.

He also ordered the convict to refund the sum of N5 million to the complainant, Garba Saleh.

He added that in the event that the convict failed to refund the money, he shall serve an additional one year prison term.

Earlier, the EFCC prosecution Counsel, E. K. Garba, told the court that the defendant defrauded the complainant on the guise that he would help his two sons gain employment into the Nigerian Army.

Garba said that after collecting the said money, he deceived the complainant’s sons into travelling to Kaduna to meet the “officer-in-charge” of the recruitment in Zaria.

The prosecutor added that on reaching Zaria, the complainant’s sons discovered that the defendant lied to them about the recruitment, and all efforts made by the complainant to get his money back proved abortive.

He said the offence was contrary to Section 320 (a) and Punishable under Section 322 of the Penal Code of Kaduna State, 2017.