A civil servant has been arrested in Kastina State for defrauding government official of several millions of naira after he used a cloned Gov. Ibrahim Shema’s GSM Phone SIM Card Number to send them text messages requesting them to pay some money into his account.
Abdulmalik Sa’idu (pictured), a staff of the state Local Government Service Commission is currently under arrest for his antics, which primarily was posing as the governor and sending text messages to members of the state executives directing them to pay money into his Keystone Bank account.
His victims were said to be the state of Head of Service, the Special Adviser on Girl-Child Education, the Commissioner for Finance, the Commissioner for Local Government and the Personal Assistant to the Governor who had all received Abdulmalik’s text messages at various times asking for millions of Naira to be deposited into a Keystone account.
According to the Gov. Shema’s Chief Press Secretary, Lawal Ahmad Matazu, “In one of those dubious text messages from Abdulmalik’s bag of tricks with the Governor’s cloned number of: +2348051185004, Abdulmalik sent the following : ‘Send the amounts of N250,000, Acc, num. 1551335007, bank name. Keystone, by tomorrow morning.”
Matazau also debunked suggestion that Abdumalik who claims to be a student of National Open University was arrested because the supposed student was criticizing the governor on his facebook page over an alleged fertilizer scam.
He said, “his claim that he is a student of a tertiary institution has added another layer of dubiousness to Abdulmalik’s character proposition. We have asked him to produce a student Identity card from the University he claims to attend or name the said University, but none has been forthcoming.
“Sa’iadu Abdumalik is not facing persecution on the orders of the Katsina State Governor because of Facebook posts. The truth here is that Abdulmalik had been cloning cell phone numbers of several officials of the Katsina State Government to perpetrate a heinous scam.
“Abdulmalik will send text messages using a cloned phone number of Governor Shehu Shema while asking State Government officials to deposit humongous sums of money into a Keystone Bank account which he operated.”
Matazu further pointed out that luck ran out on Abdulmalik when the state Commissioner for Local Government, in a meeting with the Governor, mentioned that he would deposit a certain sum of money as Governor Shema had requested. A shocked Governor Shema had wondered what transaction his Commissioner was talking about, necessitating the commissioner to show the Governor the text message delivered through Shema’s number.
“At this point, many members of Governor Shema’s Executive Council confessed receiving similar text messages from the same phone number. We had to call the mobile phone service provider whose number was being used here, to report the fraud. This led to putting a face to the scam and Abdulmalik was brought to Government House to defend himself,” he said.
