The Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja on Monday remanded two men in prison for allegedly impersonating the state governor, Gov Akinwumi Ambode in a text message and attempting to defraud the State to the tune of N50m.
The accused – Rilwan Jamiu and Balogun Oyewole are facing a three-court bordering on attempting to commit a felony and obtaining money by false pretenses.
They, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecutor, Mr Adebayo Haroun, told the court that the offense was committed on February 10, 2016 at Block 11, State Treasury Office, Ministry of Finance, Government Secretariat, Alausa, Ikeja.
Haroun said the men cloned Ambode’s Globacom telephone number in a text message demanding N50m to be transferred by the Accountant General of Lagos state, Mrs Abimbola Umar.
Umar in her statement to the authorities, said, “ On Feb. 10, 2016, I received a text message at exactly 12.52 pm.
“I initially thought the message was from His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Lagos state because the name with which I saved his number appeared in my inbox.
“The message reads, ‘AG, Urgently transfer N50m to Dayder Limited account number 002806988 Keystone Bank. We will talk later, H.E.’
“I became suspicious because His Excellency does not send text messages for any payment, he normally calls 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 take the phone to the security to investigate the text since the message did not come from him.”
The judge, Justice Sedoten Ogunsanya adjourned the case until November 17 for trial.
