By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The Sokoto State Police Command has arrested five suspects for alleged abatement and forgery of the National Identity Card.
Presenting the suspects to news men in Sokoto on Friday, the Command’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), ASP Cordelia Nwewe said that two of the suspects were Fidelity Bank staff, while the other three were business centre operators.
According to her, based on information and intelligence report, operatives of the State Investigative Bureau (SIB) had arrested the five suspects in connection with the crime.
“One Nasir Sifawa went to open a bank account with Fidelity bank in Sokoto, were he met the accounting officer, Mudassiru Taofeeq, who enquired from him about the National Identity Card. In the process, the officer intimated his colleague at the bank, Perez Percy, who in turn demanded N4,000 and Sifawa’s details together with his passport photograph. Eventually, a temporary slip of the National Identity Card was produced for Sifawa by the said bank officer and was used to open the account,” Nwewe said.
She added that Sifawa innocently and ignorantly took the forged slip to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) office in Bodinga Local Government Area of the state.
“This was with the aim of collecting the original National Identity Card, but when the NIMC staff collected the slip they discovered that it was a forged document. As such, he alerted the NIMC head office in Sokoto who in turn informed the command about the incident and both suspects were cooperating with the Police in their investigation,” Nwewe further explained.
In another development, the Command announced the arrest of five armed robbery suspects, reported at Gudu Divisional Police Office in Gudu Local Government Area of the state.
“That they blocked travelers from Niger republic coming to Sokoto on the road near Boto village in Gudu Local Government Area. The hoodlums that were armed with guns and cutlasses robbed the travelers of the sum of N 289,720, four cell phones, some cloths and provisions,” she said.
Nwewe added that a torch light used in the operation was recovered while efforts were being made to recover their firearms and arrest the remaining suspects who had fled to Niger republic.
