Court remands man for stealing gov’s handset

Osogbo – An Osogbo Senior Magistrate’s Court, yesterday, ordered that a 32-year-old man, Kelvin Ighodalo, be remanded in prison, for allegedly stealing the mobile telephone handset of Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State.

The Osun State 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, Mr 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 Ighodalo conspired with some people at Technical College Sports field on November 27, 2010 and stole a Sony Erickson telephone handset with GSM number 08039404966 from Aregbesola.

The charge sheet said that the suspect did falsely represent himself to be Aregbesola and used the telephone number on June 3, 2011, to defraud Ijesa monarch, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran of N500,000.

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

A legal officer, Mr Michael Ubi, said 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, Mr Remnus Ugwu, made an oral application for his bail. The application was rejected by Senior Magistrate Olusola Aluko, who directed the counsel to file a written bail application before the court for consideration.