Soni Daniel – Abuja

The Ilorin Zonal Office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has arrested a 53-year-old man, Muhammed Bolaji Abdulraheem, for obtaining money under false pretence, while parading himslf as a lawyer representing the commission.

But Abdulraheem suddenly ran out of luck when one of his victims, Mallam Yusuf Bello, who accused him of fleecing him of N300,000, reported him to the EFCC via a strongly worded petition.

In the petition he sent to the EFCC, Bello accused Abdulraheem, whom he described as his “lawyer,” of recovering a debt of N300,000 from his debtor and making away with the cash.

Bello told the EFCC that when he tried to recover the said cash from the suspect, he claimed that the money had been lodged with the EFCC and that there was nothing he could do about it,

“The money you are asking me to refund to you is in EFCC’s custody,” Bello quoted Abdulraheem, as saying.

However, when he was arrested and questioned by EFCC operatives, Abdulraheem confessed that the money was neither brought to the EFCC nor did the Commission know anything about it.

The story, however, also took a new dramatic turn on Monday as the suspect shocked everyone by destroying his statement wherein he had claimed to have been called to the Bar and had been practising as a lawyer for over two decades.

This happened following the Commission’s discovery that the suspect was a fake lawyer who did not finish from the Nigerian Law School, having failed its qualifying  examinations twice.

A statement by EFCC spkesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said that the man would soon be charged to court.

Vanguard