Police arrest suspect for impersonating Bishop Kukah

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah

The FCT Police Command said it had arrested a suspect, Jehu Kwasu, 25, for allegedly impersonating the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, His Lordship Matthew Kukah, to defraud members of the public.

Presenting the accused to newsmen on Sunday in Abuja, the FCT Commissioner of Police, Mr Muhammad Mustafa, said the suspect was arrested on Aug. 15 in Kaduna by personnel of the command.

He said that Kukah had complained to the command on the activities of the suspect.

“We received a complaint from Kukah through our unit that is investigating the matter which arrested the suspect,” he said.

He said that the Bishop had been informed of the arrest of the suspect who was a habitual criminal, adding that he was currently on remand.

The commissioner said that the command would continue with the investigation diligently to ensure the prosecution of the suspect.

He advised members of the public to be alert and to report any criminal activities to the security operatives.

“Any scam that you suspect should be reported to the police, whether on your e-mails, telephone calls and SMS,” he said.

The suspect who confessed to the crime, said that he opened an account at the GTB in the name of Kukah and solicited for money from the public to assist IDPs.

“My name is Jehu Kwasu, I impersonated Bishop Matthew Kukah, I collected quite a huge amount of money from people in his name.

“When I opened the account in GTB, I called people on phone for support for IDPs to channel the money to them but instead I channeled the money to myself,” he said.

He said that he was arrested by the police when he went to the bank to make withdrawal from the account which the victims paid money into.

Kwasu said that he usually called his victims through their phone numbers which he got from the Internet and true caller application.

He said that he decided to use the name of the Bishop to defraud members of the public because of his personality in the country.

The suspect who had defrauded prominent Nigerians of millions of Naira, said that his attempt to defraud former Senate President, David Mark failed.

The political science graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, said that he took to the crime because of the hardships in the country.

The suspect, a son of an Anglican Bishop, late James Kwasu, had before this been arrested for impersonating Bishop Stephen Akobe of the Kabba Anglican Diocese.