SAN Duped Of N2.5m By 53-Year-Old Primary School Graduate

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) Dr Aliyu Salimon has lost N2.5 million in a scam perpetrated by a 53-year-old primary school certificate holder, Moses Olayemi.

Olayemi, who turned out to be a convicted criminal, has been dragged before an Ikeja High Court on two counts of conspiracy to commit felony.

The suspect allegedly defrauded Salimon (SAN) under the pretext of conducting a National Assembly screening for a Federal appointment, Tribune reports.

According to the SAN's testimony, he was taken in by the scammers' plot and agreed to pay the money after several conversations.

"I was on my way to Ibadan from Ilorin for an INEC case when I received a call from someone who claimed that he was the Chairman of a committee compiling the list of people to be given Federal Government appointment," Salimon said.

“He asked me to send my CV, which I did from a nearby cyber cafe. He then asked me to pay N150,000 for him to get security report about me."

By the time he realised he was being scammed, he had already paid N2.5 million into a Skye Bank account provided by the alleged scammer.

“I paid the money thinking it would help me get a better job. It was after I paid the money that I was told that the job had been given to someone else,” he said.

Student Pulse gathered that the account belonged to one Moses Babatunde.

The alleged scammer however denied the accusation.

“My friend, Akpan, asked me if I have a Skye Bank account but since I did not have one, I got that of my friend Babatunde," Olayemi said in his statement.

"It was when we went to withdraw the money that we were apprehended and handed over to EFCC,” he said.

The Presiding Judge, Justice Lawal Akapo, denied the accused bail on the grounds that he had once jumped bail.