A pregnant housewife, Jamila Ardo, has been remanded in prison custody for allegedly faking her own kidnap and collecting over N2 million as ransom from her Facebook lover.
The 25-year-old Jamila, who hails from Adamawa State allegedly abducted herself and collected N2.076 million as ransom from Mallam Adamu Ahmed, said to live in Abuja.
She allegedly connived with a man identified simply as Abdulaziz and staged her kidnapping and then succeeded in collecting the money from Ahmed.
Jamila and Adamu had reportedly started planning to get married before the kidnapping stunt.
Communicating frequently on Facebook and still physically separated, Adamu would not know that Jamila was heavily pregnant for her husband.
According to Daily Post, Abdulaziz put a call to Adamu to make the kidnapping stunt appear real.
After the negotiation, Adamu deposited the money in a Zenith Bank account he was given, following which Jamila told him that she had regained her freedom.
Daily Post reported that Adamu became suspicious of the whole kidnapping thing after a while, and then filed a complaint letter to the police.
The investigative bureau of the police went to work, using the details of the bank account through which Adamu transferred the money, and apprehending the owner of the account named Amina Mohammed.
Amina told the police that her friend, Jamila, requested her account number so that somebody would send in money for her.
Jamila, however, pleaded not guilty when arraigned before the Chief Magistrate Court I in Yola on a charge of criminal conspiracy and kidnapping.
Following the not guilty plea, Police Prosecutor Abubakar Nurudeen prayed Magistrate Abdullahi Mohammed Digil to adjourn the matter to enable the prosecution to forward the case file to the director of public prosecution for legal advice.
Ruling, Magistrate Digil adjourned the case to March 10, 2022, and ordered that the defendant be remanded.