FILE PHOTO: Court Jails Three Sokoto Medical Workers for Alleged N3.3m Fraud.

Justice Bello Duwale of the Sokoto State High Court, sitting in Sokoto on 11 December 2020, convicted and sentenced three top officials of the Sokoto Medical and Health Workers Union to two years imprisonment.

The health workers, Ibrahim Dan-Dede, Suleiman Ibrahim and Habibu Musa were sentenced without an option of fine for obtaining Three million, three hundred thousand naira (N3,300,000.00) by false pretence.

The convicts were prosecuted by the Sokoto Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a two-count charge.

Count one reads: “That you Ibrahim Dan-Dede while being the Chairman, Suleiman Ibrahim while being the Secretary and Habibu Musa while being Treasurer of Medical and Health Workers Union of Nigeria, Shagari Local Government Area branch of Sokoto State, sometime in August 2015 in Sokoto, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, with intent to defraud, did obtain 20 units of new Daylong G125 Motorcycles, which each cost the sum of N165,000.00 (One Hundred and Sixty-five Thousand Naira), totalling the sum of N3,300,000.00 (Three Million Three Hundred Thousand Naira, Only) from one Babangida Garba (a motorcycle dealer) when you falsely represented yourself to him that the motorcycles were for members of your union as a loan, a pretence you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

They pleaded not guilty to the charges, which necessitated their trial.

Prosecution counsel, Habila Jonathan, in the course of the trial tendered several documents and called witnesses to prove the case against the convicts.

Justice Duwale convicted the trio on all the charges, and sentenced them to two years on each of the 2 counts, without an option of fine. The sentences are to run concurrently.