By Ayoola Earnest
A 42-year-old woman, Hajarat Egbunu, has been arrested by the Katsina State Police Command over an alleged job scam.
It was learnt that the Kogi State indigene was a former official of the Nigerian Immigration Service and was based in Abuja.
The suspect was reported to have collected N34,800,000 from some jobseekers, who were issued with fake appointment letters.
According to the police, the victims were promised jobs with the Economic Community of West African States, Abuja, which will fetch each of them a monthly salary of N3m.
The applicants allegedly paid N3.5m for each job offer.
The police said the victims later discovered that the ECOWAS appointment letters sent to them online were fake.
Trouble started for Egbunu on October 4, 2021, when the police arrested one Ibrahim El-Maki, who was her link to the victims.
El-Maki reportedly told the police that he was also a victim of the suspect, adding that he also paid some money for the supposed job.
Although El-Maki, who was also at the Katsina police headquarters on Wednesday when the suspect was paraded, claimed that Egbunu collected N47,350,000 from him for the job offers, she insisted that it was N34,800,000 she collected.
The Katsina State Police Public Relations Officer, SP Gambo Isah, described Egbunu as “a dismissed Nigerian Immigration Service officer and a notorious fraudster, who has been on the wanted list of security agencies for various offences relating to fraud.”
The command spokesman implored jobseekers not to be desperate and always verify from right sources when approached with job offers.
Egbunu declined comments on the allegation against her, saying El-Maki had already dragged her to court over the issue.
The police also paraded a woman, Afusatu Adamu, who was said to be the widow of a late bandit commander known as Shamandaji.
Adamu was allegedly caught with 150 pieces of an illicit injection in the Dandume Local Government Area of the state while on her way to supply bandits in the forest.
