The deputy director at the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Yisa Usman, was on Tuesday arraigned at the Federal High Court in Abuja for allegedly threatening Raheemat, wife of the JAMB registrar, Ishaq Oloyede.
He was arraigned by the police on behalf of the Federal Government on a five-count before Justice Nkeonye Maha.
Usman, 54, was accused of threatening Oloyede with the intent to blackmail her husband.
He was also alleged to have committed the offence with Abdulfatai Usman, now at large, between February 14, 2022, and February 15, 2022.
Both of them were said to have communicated with Oloyede through a network computer system with the phone number: +447529723948, and the communication was said to be “grossly offensive, indecent, criminal intimidation with the purpose of causing inconvenience or needless anxiety” to her.
The police also accused Usman of publishing letters between January 31, 2022, and February 4, 2022, through a computer system network on WhatsApp alleging that the JAMB registrar, Oloyede, and members of the management board of JAMB committed fraud and violated the Federal Government’s regulations “even though he knew such information to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 24(1)(a) & (b) of the Cybercrime Act 2015.”
Usman pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Ruling on his bail application, Justice Maha granted him bail in the sum of N2 million with a surety who must be a civil servant on level 14 and must own a landed property within the jurisdiction of the court.
Alternatively, the judge held that the surety could also be a responsible citizen who had paid his tax for two years and must have landed property within the jurisdiction of the court.
She said the surety, who must submit his or her international passport and a passport photograph to the court registrar, must depose to an affidavit of means.
Justice Maha ordered that Usman be remanded at a correctional centre pending the perfection of his bail and adjourned the matter until October 26 for trial.
But Balogun, who prayed the court to order the release of his client to him pending the perfection of his bail within five days, pledged to write an undertaking to the effect.
The judge granted the plea and ordered that the undertaking be completed before the close of work.
