According to media reports, Lawal Adekunle Nurudeen, a final year student of the Department of Survey and Geo-Informatics Engineering, at the University of Lagos, Lagos State, Nigeria, has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for obtaining $27,900.91 from an Australian woman named Pee Loo Rosalind Summer.

Apparently, the two had met in 2007, where Nurudeen had introduced himself as Engineer Benson Lawson, a British widower working with a multi-national company in Nigeria, whose wife and children died in “a ghastly motor accident”.

“The victim, a 56-year-old woman from Australia, told the convict that she wanted a husband and all the men she had met always disappointed her,” a statement he quickly capitalized on, convincing her that he was her “Mr Right”, and sending her a picture of a white man to further the ploy.

Reports from the Times of Nigeria have it that he was arraigned before a high court in Ikeja, Lagos- where he was handed the sentence. In addition to the 15 year sentence, he is also to pay $250 monthly to the victim, until “the total amount is liquidated.”

As expected, the story has made headlines across the globe, the result- a further dent in Nigeria’s online reputation. The story in itself really is saddening, considering that there are many other legal ways to make a living online.

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