Joshua Orkuma: The pathetic story of a Benue son held in detention for 3 years over hacked Facebook account 

Joshua Orkuma hails from Vandeikya LGA. His aged father is a retired prison officer while his mum is a petty trader. Just like every striving young man, he had his own dreams and ambitions. One of his dreams was to become a priest, however after many years of fruitless attempts to gain admission into the seminary, he later got admission into Bayero University Kano to study biochemistry. Fate seemed to have smiled on him and everything seemed to be going smoothly for him until two days to the second semester exams of his second year in school when the sad events leading to his predicament began.

Just like most students, Joshua Orkuma relied on stipends from his family and friends for survival in school. On this fateful day of 3rd Oct, 2020, his younger brother, Oliver Orkuma sent him #5000 naira to enable him get some food stuffs. On reaching the ATM, the machine withheld his card and declined his transaction. He went into the bank and was able to retrieve his ATM card but he was advised to visit his own bank and enquire the reason why he is unable to withdraw. Because it was already late, he decided to visit the bank the following day.

On reaching the bank the following day, he complained of his inability to withdraw and the bank informed him that his account has been blocked. The bank however began to implore delay tactics to keep him there because unknown to him the bank had alerted the police to come and arrest him. About an hour later an armed police officer came in and arrested him. He was taken to the police station where the DPO referred the case to EFCC office in Kano state.

At EFCC he was asked to write about himself. He was later taken to the cell at about 4:30pm. The next day he was shown a petition that said “someone hacked into PAYSTACKS payment limited and withdrew the sum of 21.750 million and transferred to two different acct. (showing the account names and numbers, with the people’s email address) although Joshua was not linked to this crime. However one Michael Popoola that was arrested claimed that Joshua Orkuma’s Facebook Account was used to chat him up and he transferred some of the stolen money to the user of the face book account.

Meanwhile, Joshua Orkuma said his Facebook account had been hacked since June 2018 and he had no access to that particular Facebook account any longer. The Name was even changed from ORKUMA JOSHUA to JOSHUA ORKUMA OMAMEFE.

Joshua said he tried to logging in to the account but he was unable to do so because his details and password had been changed by the fraudsters who hacked his account. He said he abandoned the account and created another account.

One of the highlights of this story is that on 15th of October 2019 Joshua Orkuma’s case was transferred to Lagos, were the EFCC alleged that the incident took place although Joshua claims that he has never before step foot in Lagos in his entire life.

Furthermore on the 19th Jan. 2020 on a Sunday morning, Joshua said he was called out by one of the EFCC officers by name AHMED, and was taken to their office and forced to write that he was using a phone in the cell, meanwhile it was the fraudsters that were still operating his Facebook account. Joshua said his phone was confiscated from him since his arrest and he didn’t have any access to it. However the officers noticed that his account was active at the time they came to call him out. Joshua said the officer Ahmed was with two other officers HARUNA and TIMILAYO were forcing him to admit that he was the one operating the Facebook account. But he stood his ground and refused to admit.

Joshua said he finally taken to court on the 6th March 2020.

He was granted bail on that same day but the condition were very tough for him to meet. He was told to bring two sureties that had 5million each in their accounts and they will not touch the money until the case is over. So his lawyer applied for variation and the condition was finally reduced that he should now produce two sureties and both must be working and must be from Lagos and that one of them must have a landed property that worth 5million and both should have a 3years tax clearance.

As we speak Joshua is still unable to meet his bail requirements and is still languishing in detention. His schooling along with all his dreams and aspirations have sadly been cut short. To make matters worse, his lawyer who has been handling the matter informed him that she will be traveling out and has advised him to engage another lawyer.

His family is appealing for assistance on his behalf. We are calling on the Legal aid council, his House of Reps members, State House of Assembly member, Mzough u Tiv in Lagos, well meaning CSOs and individuals to come to Joshua’s aid in the interest of justice.

For contacts and enquiries:

1. Mr. Mose Faga (brother in law)

07065068013

2. Orkuma Wachin Godwin (Father)

08065709179