A 27-year-old fashion designer, Haruna Musa Tolani, has been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for impersonating and defrauding an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC investigator, Callitus Egwuonwu.
Tolani, an indigene of Ilorin East Local Government Area of Kwara State, was initially arraigned on a two-count charge bordering on impersonation and cybercrime on January 28, 2025.
He, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges, but later changed his plea to guilty after overwhelming evidence was presented by counsel to the EFCC, Sesan Ola.
Count one of the charge reads: “That you Haruna Musa Tolani in August, 2024 at Ilorin, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, with intent to defraud, misrepresented yourself via electronic message sent through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) to Access Bank Plc. In respect to account number 0022643389, property of Callistus Egwuonwu, with which you purchased N200,000. 00 (Twenty Thousand naira) worth of MTN data. Which resulted into loss to the owner of the account. And you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 14(2) of the cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention) Act, 2015”
Similarly, count two reads: “That you Haruna Musa Tolani sometime in August, 2024 at Ilorin within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court fraudulently impersonated one Callistus Egwuonwu via electronic message sent throughout Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) to Access Bank Plc. In respect to account number 0022643389, property of Callistus Egwuonwu with intention to purchase MTN data worth Twenty Thousand Naira (20,000.00). Which you did purchase and thereby committed offence contrary to Section 22(2)(b)(ii) of the cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention) Act,2015 and punishable under Section 22(2)(b)(iv) of the same Act”
In his judgment, Justice Awogboro of the Federal High Court, Ilorin imposed a 12-months custodial sentence on Tolani with an option of a fine of N200, 00.00 (Two Hundred Thousand Naira).
The court also ordered the forfeiture of a First Bank manager’s cheque of N200,00.00 in favour of the victim. It also directed the convict to restitute the sum of N200,00.90, the amount he fraudulently obtained.
NAN