It was incredible excitement for a job-seeker, Innocent Okpanachi, who had been defrauded of his money by a job racketeer when he finally got his money back with the help of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).
Okpanachi beamed with smiles and his eyes lit up with joy as he received the cash sum of N325, 000.00 which was handed back to him by Mr. Tunji Jabaru of the Asset Tracing, Recovery and Management Unit of ICPC on behalf of the Commission.
One Mohammed Abdullahi Habib posing as a senior officer of the Nigeria Customs Service had collected the said amount of money from Okpanachi, through a third party who is now at large, with the promise to secure a job for him with the Service.
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After receiving the money, Habib was alleged to have issued Okpanachi an employment letter with which he approached Customs authorities to verify its authenticity and discovered that it was fake.
Having found out that the appointment letter was not genuine and their go-between had disappeared into thin air, the job seeker tried to get Habib to refund his money for over 4 years without success, he then wrote a petition to ICPC.
The Commission promptly swung into action and investigations revealed that the suspect had indeed fraudulently obtained the money from his victim.
The said amount was recovered from the suspect, Mohammed Habib, and then handed over to the petitioner.
After the handing over ceremony, Mr. Innocent Okpanachi expressed his profound appreciation to the Commission for the assistance he had received. In his words, “Even though I had lost hope, ICPC did a wonderful job of ensuring that justice was restored”.
Mrs. Rasheedat A. Okoduwa, mni
Spokesperson for the Commission
