Fredrick Shuaibu, an Economics graduate from a university in the southwestern part of Nigeria was sentenced to four months in prison for impersonation on Wednesday.
According to PMNews, Fredrick had been charged with one count of impersonation by the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at the Ibadan Zonal office after he had impersonated a foreign white female.
This crime is punishable under Section 22(4) of the Cyber Crimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act, 2015 which reads:
“Any person who makes or causes to be made, either directly or indirectly, any
false statement as to a material fact in writing, knowing it to be false and with intent that it be relied upon respecting his identity or that of any other person or his financial condition or that of any other person for the purpose of procuring the issuance of a card or other instrument to himself or another person commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not more than 5 years or a fine of not more than N7,000,000.00 or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
The case file explains that Fredrick had illegally impersonated a white woman named Kristen Polochak to swindle one Jim Fletcher of the sum of $1000 using the email, kristenpolochak@gmail.com.
On December 10th, 2018, he had initially pleaded ‘not guilty’ to a five-count charge that had been filed against him. However, Fredrick decided to accept a plea deal which resulted with the charges being dropped and replaced with a one-count charge of impersonation which he pleaded guilty to.
In view of the guilty plea, the counsel for the EFCC, Mabas Mabur beseeched the court to convict the accused of the charge leveled against him.
After careful consideration of the case, Justice Watilat Ibrahim of the Federal High Court in Abeokuta, Ogun State convicted and sentenced Fredrick to four months in prison.
PMNews reports that prior to his incarceration, Fredrick had been awaiting his mobilization for the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) which is the compulsory one-year service programme for Nigerian graduates.
Fredrick is also to pay restitution to the victim for the money that was illegally obtained from him.
