A staff member of Ecobank Plc, Solomon Stephen Ufayo, has been sentenced to one year imprisonment by the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos, for a cybercrime offence involving the sum of N2,404,000.
Ufayo, who worked as a Relief Teller with the bank, was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on a one-count charge bordering on cybercrime and identity theft. He was convicted after pleading guilty before Justice Yellim Bogoro.
According to the EFCC, Ufayo fraudulently impersonated a customer of the bank, one Miss Omowunmi Ajoke, by posting fake deposit transactions into her account. He then used withdrawal slips to transfer the money—totalling over N2.4 million—into his personal Opay account, all without the customer’s consent.
The charge read in part:
“That you, Solomon Stephen Ufayo, between the 10th and 28th of March, 2025, in Lagos, while working as a Relief Teller with Ecobank Nigeria Limited, fraudulently represented yourself as Omowunmi Ajoke, by posting false deposit and withdrawal tellers on her Ecobank account, with intent to unlawfully enrich yourself…”
The EFCC’s counsel, Abdulhamid L. Tukur, presented David Ngale Gajere, an investigator with the Commission, to review the facts of the case. Gajere confirmed that the defendant admitted to the crime in a written statement and also refunded the stolen money through a bank draft presented to the court.
During Monday’s hearing, Ufayo appealed to the court for mercy, explaining that he was driven by financial pressure as his wife was pregnant at the time. He added that he was in custody when his wife gave birth, expressing regret over his actions.
In his ruling, Justice Bogoro sentenced him to one year in prison with an option of a N500,000 fine. The court also ordered the convict to complete two weeks of community service.
