A Business Woman, Halima Ibrahim, popularly known as Leema, has been dragged to Upper Shari’a Court, sitting at Kofar Kudu in Kano State over alleged N500 million fraud, by a group of 31 market women

The case which has been in Court since September 2022, was filed by Habiba Tijjani and 30 others, praying the Sharia Court Khadi to force Halima Ibrahim to pay back their money, N500 millions which allegedly was collected from them fraudulently by the defendant.

The plaintiffs claimed to have paid the sum of N500 million jointly to Leema, for the order of furniture, kitchen utensils, toys and household items from China but are yet to receive the goods.

They complained that the said woman refused to either bring the goods or refund them, prompting them to take the matter to the Shari’a court, presided over by Ustaz Ibrahim Sarki Yola.

Some of the women, who spoke to Radio Nigeria, Fatima Abdullahi Shehu , Rashida Kardam, Aishatu Abubakar, Aisha Rabi’u, Habiba Tijjani and Hassana Bello from Abuja, Adamawa, Katsina, Gombe and Kaduna respectively said that most of those affected reside in neighbouring states, and travel regularly to Kano for the court case.

They noted that most of them were taken to the Police Station by their respective customers, others were divorced by their husbands while about five of them lost their lives due to tension and pressure from customers to refund their money.

They noted that the huge amount of the money was paid to Halima’s bank account in installments after she advertised the products in her WhatsApp group.

They appealed to Sarki Yola to assist them by speeding up the judgement, saying, “as a Judge with proven integrity, we believe that he would get to the root of the matter and do justice to us”.

They also appealed to Kano state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje and the emir of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, to help intervene for them to get justice over the ongoing case.

When our reporter contacted the defense lawyers, Barrister sAliyu and Yunusa, did not respond to phone calls, nor did they reply to the text message sent to them.

(New Telegraph)