Justice Musa Mustapha of the Borno State High Court, Maiduguri on Wednesday, convicted and sentenced one Tijjani Mohammed Bulama to six month imprisonment on a one count amended charge of criminal misappropriation.
Bulama, a Point of Sale, POS operator, was prosecuted by the Maiduguri Zonal Command of the EFCC, following his investigation for criminally diverting the sum of N1.5m which a customer had asked him to transfer to another recipient.
The amended charge read, “That you, Tijjani Mohammed Bulama on 26th day of May, 2022 at Maiduguri, Borno State within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, being entrusted with dominion over certain properties to wit; First Bank Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) belonging to one Alhaji Kachallah Bukar to transfer the sum of N1, 500,000.00 (One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira) to one Abdullahi Musa with account No. 228877146 domiciled in Zenith Bank, instead of which you transferred the said sum to your friend’s account, one Garba Ramadan Abba with account No. 6320571863 domiciled in Fidelity Bank without his consent and did dishonestly misappropriated the entire sum of N1,500,000.00 (One Million Five Hundred Thousand Naira) and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 308 of the Penal Code Cap 102 Laws of Borno State of Nigeria and Punishable under Section 309 of the same Law.”
The defendant pleaded ‘guilty’ to the amended charge preferred against him by the EFCC.
Counsel for the prosecution, Mukhtar Ali Ahmed, prayed the court to convict and sentence him accordingly.
The defendant’s counsel, M. A Adam urged the court to temper justice with mercy as the nominal complainant has been fully restituted.
Justice Mustapha convicted and sentenced Bulama to six month imprisonment with option of N20, 000 (Twenty Thousand Naira) fine.
