Court remands man for stealing governor's mobile telephone handset government alleges

For allegedly stealing a phone belonging to Rauf Aregbesola, the governor of Osun State, an Osogbo Senior Magistrates’ Court on Monday ordered that a 32 year old man, Kelvin Ighodalo, be remanded in prison.

The Osun Government had arraigned the suspect on a six-count charge of conspiracy, fraud, stealing and impersonation.

The charge sheet, signed by a Principal State Counsel,  Biodun Badeora, for the Attorney-General, stated that the accused, and others at large, committed the offence between November 2010 and June 2011 in Osogbo.

It also stated that the accused Mr. Ighodalo conspired with some people at Technical College Sports field on November 27and stole a Sony Erickson telephone handset with GSM number 08039404966 from the state governor.

The charge sheet said the suspect falsely represented himself as Mr. Aregbesola and used the telephone number on June 3 to defraud the Ijesha Monarch, Adekunle Aromolaran, of N500,000.

It further claimed that the suspect used the number on May 24, 2011, to defraud one  Shenge Rahman of N200,000.

A Legal Officer, Michael Ubi, said that all the alleged offences contravened sections 8 (c), 1 (1) (c) and punishable under section 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Related Offences Act 2006.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to all the charges and his counsel, Remnus Ugwu, made an oral application for his bail.

But the oral bail application was rejected by the Senior Magistrate, Olusola Aluko.

Mr. Aluko directed the counsel to file a written bail application before the court for consideration and ordered that the accused be remanded in prison custody till July 31.