Court Remands 2 Men In Prison For Allegedly Cloning Ambode’s Phone Number
Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya of the Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja on Monday, remanded two men, Rilwan Jamiu and Balogun Oyewole in prison custody for allegedly cloning the telephone number of the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode.
The judge ordered that the duo be kept in prison after they were arraigned on a three count charge of attempting to commit felony, and obtaining money by false pretence.
The defendants, who allegedly committed the offence at Block 11, State Treasury Office, Ministry of Finance, Alausa, Ikeja, were said to have attempted to defraud the Accountant General of Lagos State, through the cloned telephone number.
According to the state, the defendants cloned the Glo telephone number of the Governor and sent same to the Accountant General, Mrs.Abimbola Shkrat Umar, asking her to pay N50 million into an account.
Mrs. Shkrat told the court, “On February. 10, 2016, I received a text message at exactly 12.52pm. I initially thought the message is from his Excellency, the Executive Governor of Lagos state, because the name which I stored his number with was the same one that appeared in my inbox.
“The message read, “AG, urgently transfer N50 million to Dayder Limited acc no 002806988 Keystone bank. We will talk later”.
“I became suspicious because his Excellency does not send text message for any payment. He normally calls me to his office when the need arises.
“This text message also looked strange because his Excellency would not end his message with H.E nor start with AG. This is not his pattern.
“I put a call to the Governor and he immediately asked me to bring the phone for the security to investigate the text since the message did not come from him,” Mrs. Umar claimed.
The defendants, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Justice Ogunsanya adjourned the matter till November 17 for trial while she ordered the defendants to be remanded in prison.
