Why I posed as Tinubu, by suspect

An upcoming musician, Lucky Adaeze, has disclosed why he decided to impersonate the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu. Adaeze was arrested along with another impostor, Collins Obinna, who allegedly defrauded unsuspecting Nigerians via Facebook, posing as the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Fatai Owoseni.

One John Ogunowo was also arrested for allowing Adaeze to use his account to receive fraud money from victims. Adaeze said he posed as Tinubu on Facebook because he wanted more people to listen to his music. He said: “I opened the Facebook, using the picture and name of Bola Tinubu, to get more fans to listen to my music on the social media.

My stage name is Dusk to Dawn. “Yes, I chatted with a lady, but I never had any intention to defraud her. I asked her for money. When the woman wanted to pay the money into my account, I informed my friend. I begged him to allow the money to be paid into his account because I still had problem with my Bank Verification Number (BVN). We were at the bank to withdraw the N100,000 when police arrested us.”

Adaeze had reportedly lied to the woman that he was running a foundation to help the less privileged in the society and listed numerous advantages that would be accrued to donors. According to the police, Obinna is an ND 1 student of Mechanical Engineering, Oko Polytechnic, Anambra State. The three suspects were paraded yesterday at the state police command headquarters.

Owoseni explained that Obinna was arrested through intelligence gathering. He added that detectives started monitoring Obinna after he used his picture on Facebook to solicit for funds. Posing as Owoseni, the suspect told unsuspecting victims that he needed money for his foundation which carters for children. “Obinna had been posing as me on Facebook.

He had been defrauding people, but luck ran out on him when he asked one of the victims to pay some money into his bank account. Pretending to be me, he told the victim that he was setting up a foundation. We got the information and worked on it. He was arrested,” Owoseni added.

The police chief warned Lagosians to be careful in befriending highly placed individuals on Facebook. Stating his own side of the story, Obinna said: “I opened the Facebook account using the name and picture of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Owoseni, because I wanted to solicit for money. I opened the Facebook account with the intention of defrauding people.

But I have only collected N20,000 from a woman.” Recalling how he defrauded the woman, Obinna said that he lied to her. He recounted: “I lied to the woman that I was training a group of boys through my foundation. I told her that I needed money to fund the foundation. She told me to come to Con-Oil filling station at Ikeja. It was there police arrested me.”