BY GBENGA OLARINOYE

OSOGBO – An Osogbo Magistrate Court, presided over by Mr. Olusola Aluko, yesterday, ordered that Messrs Ogunjobi Babatunde and Yusuf Abdulgafar, be remanded in prison for allegedly stealing the mobile phone of the Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.

Both Babatunde (32) and Abdulgafar (24) were alleged to have stolen the mobile phone on November 27,  2010 at about 4 .30pm during the inauguration of Aregbesola as the Governor of the state at the Technical College playing ground, Osogbo.

The accused persons, according to the charge sheet read in the court, were accused of stealing a Sony Ericson phone with an MTN SIM card with number 08039404966 belonging to Ogbeni Aregbesola.

They were also accused of defrauding unsuspecting members of the public by using Aregbesola’s GSM number to call innocent people with the aim of obtaining money from them on behalf of the Governor.

One of those called by the accused persons with Aregbesola’s number, according to the charge sheet, was the Owa Obokun of Ijesha land, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran, who was asked to pay the sum of N500,000 into Intercontinental Bank account number 1007440399, an account belonging to one of the accused persons; Yusuf Abdulgafar.

According to the charge sheet, Oba Aromolaran paid the said amount to the Ilesa branch of the bank and one of the accused persons, Abdulgafar, withdrew the sum of N495, 000 from a branch of the bank in Lagos State.