Police arraign couple in Abuja court over alleged N5.2m contract scam

A businessman, Hussaini Shehu, and his wife, Farida Idris, were on Thursday arraigned by the police at the Wuse Zone 6 Chief Magistrates’ Court in Abuja, over allegations bordering a N5.2 million contract scam.

The duo is facing a four-count charge of conspiracy, impersonation, criminal breach of trust and cheating in the contract scam.
The prosecutor, ASP Fidelis Ogbobe, told the court that the complainant, Halima Gambo, resident in Abuja, reported the matter at the Police Area Commander’s office at Metro-Maitama in Abuja.

According to Ogbobe, Shehu, who had earlier been arraigned in the same court for alleged possession of counterfeit foreign currencies, conspired with his wife, Farida and two others still at large to defraud the complainant.

He said the suspects conspired and deceived Gambo into transferring the sum of N5.2 million into Farida’s bank account for a contract they would facilitate for her at the Kaduna State Procurement Board.

According to him, after Gambo discovered that the said contract was a scam, all the efforts she made to get her money back from the suspects proved abortive, noting that the offence contravened the provisions of the Penal Code.

Meanwhile, after listening to the charges, the defendants pleaded not guilty.

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The defence counsel, Etta Effiong, applied for their bail in the most liberal terms, citing provisions of the 1999 Constitution and sections of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, to support his application.

But Ogbobe objected to the bail application, saying the defendants had earlier escaped from police administrative bail.

However, in her ruling, Chief Magistrate Fatima Ibrahim granted Shehu and Farida bail in the sum of N500,000 each and two reasonable sureties in like sum.

She ruled that the sureties must be residents within the court’s jurisdiction and the defendants must deposit their passports with the court registrar.

She adjourned the case to October 20, for a hearing.

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