Fake Atiku’s aide remanded over ‘N100m campaign fraud’

A Kaduna state high court has remanded Modu Kotoko, a business man, for “duping a car dealer N100 million under false pretence”.

The zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in the state had arraigned Kotoko before the court on Monday on a two-count charge for pretending to be an aide of Atiku Abubakar, former presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The anti-graft agency said it received a petition from one Abdullahi Wuroji, managing director of Waram Nigeria Limited in Kaduna, about Kotoko.

Wuroji alleged Kotoko met him in 2018 and introduced himself as an aide of Atiku. He said the suspect told him to give him 13 brand new cars, shoes and clothes worth N65,680,000 and N34,800,000.

The complainant said the suspect told him that Atiku requested for the cars and money to prosecute his 2019 presidential campaign.

Wuroji said he believed the suspect and released the 13 brand new cars and goods all worth N100,480,000.

However, the defendant bolted away and failed to pay.

He said he later realised that Atiku never requested for any cars or goods from Kotoko.

Count one of the charges filed against the suspect reads: “That you, Alhaji Modu Kotoko, Managing Director of Absanajq Nigeria Limited, sometime in 2018, in Kaduna within the judicial Division of this Honourable Court with intent to defraud, obtained property to wit: 13 brand of cars, shoes and clothes worth the total sum of N65,680,000.00 (Sixty-five million, six hundred and eighty thousand naira) only from Abdullahi Mohammed Wuroji under false pretence that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, GCON requested same to finance his 2019 Presidential General Election, a pretence you knew to be false and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1(1)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offence Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3) of the same Act.”

The suspect pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Mohammed Tukur, the presiding judge, remanded him in prison and adjourned the case till March 25 for ruling of bail application.