Court convicts two civil servants over employment scam

The Kano State High Court in Kano has convicted two civil servants, Helen Odey and Zainab Musa, for fraudulently securing employment through impersonation and forgery.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) disclosed in a statement on Monday that the court convicted the two defendants on three charges of conspiracy, impersonation and making false statements to a public officer.

The judge, Dije Aboki, sentenced Ms Odey to two years’ imprisonment, and Ms Musa to six months’ jail term, according to the statement by ICPC’s spokesperson, Azuka Ogugwa.

The commission accused them of impersonating Hussienat Ahmed to secure employment with the Kano State Universal Basic Education Board.

They allegedly used a statement of the result of the Federal College of Education belonging to Ms Ahmed to perpetuate the fraud.

“The commission had charged the convicts for conspiring among themselves to impersonate one Hussienat Ahmed to secure employment with the Kano State Universal Basic Education Board by using a Federal College of Education Kano statement of result, belonging to the said Hussienat Ahmed,” the statement said.

It added that their offences were contrary to section 96(1) (a) of the penal Code Law, Cap 105 Laws of Kano State and punishable under section 197 of the same law.

They had both pleaded “not guilty” to all the charges preferred against them and that set the stage for trial.

Having found ICPC to have proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the trial judge convicted and jailed the two defendants to six months’ imprisonment with N200,000 fine, each.

On count 2, Mr Aboki found the first defendant (Ms Odey) guilty and sentenced her to two years imprisonment and N500,000 fine.

Also, on count 3, the judge sentenced Ms Ody to one year’s imprisonment.

All the sentences are to run concurrently.