A student of an unnamed university in Delta State, South-south Nigeria, Jeremia Elele, has allegedly defrauded about 60 new students of the university of N15 million.
The police spokesperson in Delta State, Bright Edafe, in a video clip uploaded on his X handle on Friday said Mr Elele separately collected monies from victims in order to help them pay their tuition fees.
Mr Edafe, a superintendent of police, said the students separately gave the suspect between N250,000 and N300,000 each to pay their tuition fees.
PREMIUM TIMES understands that Mr Elele and most of the victims secured admission into the university through the Joint Universities Preliminary Examinations Board (JUPEB)
JUPEB is a 10-month advanced-level programme which allows candidates to gain Direct Entry admission into the 200 level of a university without writing the traditional Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination.
What I did with money
During interrogation, Mr Elele confessed in the clip that he collected the funds from the students, but failed to pay their tuition fees as he agreed with them.
The suspect, however, claimed that he collected such funds from 31 students, not 60 students.
The 28-year-old claimed that he used the funds to buy between 11 and 15 dogs and then sold them.
Mr Elele said he “misused” the remaining funds while trying to reimburse the victims.
Mr Edafe asked Mr Elele why he committed the offence, but interrupted the suspect almost immediately when he attempted to claim that he did not plan to defraud the victims.
“This your story can’t work for me,” the police spokesperson interrupted, reminding him that the victims were around the police facility.
“The fact is that you collected from people’s school fees and you did not pay,” he told Mr Elele.
“Yes Sir,” the suspect acknowledged.
But the suspect, on interrogation, admitted that he paid his own tuition fees.
“This is what we call man’s inhumanity to man,” Mr Edafe said of the suspect’s action.
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Victims speak
Mr Edafe then introduced a few victims to share their experiences. The clip did not show their faces.
One of the victims, who did not identify himself, said he met Mr Elele at the JUPEB programme and that he began to trust him after the suspect helped him pay for an attendance via the university’s software application.
“I trusted him with my school fees which was N210,000 because he claimed he could pay it and that he was working with the school.
“He claimed he signed as a surety with the school for students paying him to be able to half before paying completely later on,” the victim said.
Four other victims reported giving the suspect N256,000 each to pay their tuition fees which he failed to do.