BY:BABAGANA BUKAR WAKIL NGALA
Proprietress of Dala Standard secondary school Josephine Udeh has been remanded in prison after pleading not guilty in a case of fraud involving over N5M she allegedly fleeced from desperate students who wanted to complete their papers in her school.
Madam Udeh who was brought before Justice Aisha Kumalia in a Maiduguri High court by the economic and financial crimes commission EfCC for mentioning was slammed with a one-count charge of defrauding 284 students of the sum of N 5.059m.
According to the prosecution lawyer, Halima Shehu, four witnesses would be tendered for the trial which will commence properly on 14 May and continue on the 15th and 17th for appearance of all witnesses.
The charge read, “That you Josephine Udeh being the director of Dala standard secondary school Maiduguri, sometimes between 2017 and 2018 within the jurisdiction of this honorable court with intent to defrauding did obtain the accumulated sum of N5, 059,000.
Only from 284 students, under the false pretence that the said money would be used to pay for their WAEC registration fees, which you knew to be false and thereby committed an offense contrary to section 1(2) and punishable under section 1(3) of the advance fee fraud and other fraud related offences Act 2006 respectively”.
The case materialised after the angry students who were supposed to take their waec in her school, were told to walk out by external supervisors who told them they were not on the list.
The angry students thereby wrote a petition to the Efcc reporting the matter, which is why the agency had to rise up to action to prosecute the woman for holding back their money.
Her defense lawyer barrister Aminu Sani averred that aguments might be advanced for her bail during the next sitting slated for the 14th of may 2019.