By Farooq Kperogi
A few days ago, I shared the story of a scammer who claimed to be “Halima Tahir,” a 300-level microbiology undergraduate at Bayero University, Kano, who scammed me into helping “her” with tuition fees and other school expenses three different times.
Well, after some digital sleuthing, I discovered, to my utmost shock, that “Halima Tahir” is actually one Ismail Sani (https://www.facebook.com/ismail.sani.29309), whom I had helped with tuition fees and other school expenses from 2024 through 2025 even though I didn’t know him from a bar of soap.
Ismail Saleh Sani is a student of Veterinary Medicine at Bayero University Kano who has just completed his second year. He first reached out to me in September 2024.
He said he was a second-year Human Anatomy student at the Federal University in Dutse but had just been admitted to study Veterinary Medicine at BUK. He needed help paying his tuition fees to secure his place.
I helped him. I asked for no verification. He nonetheless sent me evidence of the payment, which I hadn’t demanded because I had no suspicions. He was grateful and gave me unsolicited updates on his progress at school.
He later made two other financial requests, including one to help an old woman who supposedly couldn’t afford medicine for an ear infection, which I granted.
After that, he kept pestering me with an even bigger request to buy laptops to facilitate a JAMB-coaching school he said he had called the Online ExtraMural JAMB Lesson Project. I ignored him.
He then used the name “Halima Tahir” to get more money from me, apparently in cahoots with someone who actually bears the name Halima Tahir Dahiru.
The email address ([email protected]) he used to communicate with me as “Halima Tahir” (recall that the initial display name in the email was Ishmael Sani) appears on the receipt of his last school fees payment retrieved via Remita. The phone number on the receipt was confirmed by Truecaller to belong to Ismail Sani. (He has now deactivated the email address!)
I confronted him with the evidence and was prepared to forgive him if he came clean and apologized. After all, he is a legitimate student. But he flatly denied it, even swearing by Allah. He claimed someone stole his email address to perpetrate the crime.
Fine. I dug deeper and found his 2023 JAMB registration slip. Sure enough, the email he used was [email protected]. I shared the slip with him and asked how he had used the same email address in 2023. I also asked why the initial display name for the email address was Ishmael Sani, which also appears in the alternative address ([email protected]) he uses on Truecaller and with which he had previously emailed me.
I thought that, in light of the overwhelming evidence I showed him, he would be penitent and seek forgiveness. I gave him multiple opportunities to show remorse and apologize. He refused. Instead, he kept protesting his innocence with the exact same words and in the same stylistic register he used when I first called him out for changing the display name from Ishmael Sani to Halima Tahir. He invoked Allah, Ramadan, and every sacred symbol in Islam to swear his innocence even though the evidence against him is incontrovertible. Can you believe that?
He is clearly a dangerous, well-practiced scammer. Or perhaps he is mentally unwell. Whatever the case, he does not belong in polite society. He belongs in prison, or somewhere he cannot harm people.
My search showed that he scammed other friends. He scammed Dr. Hussaini Abdu into helping with tuition fees as “Halima Tahir.” He scammed Mohammed Dahiru (“MD”) Aminu as “Halima Tahir” and also attempted to scam him as Ismail Sani. He scammed Dr. Abdulbasit Kassim (who appears in his Facebook profile photo) both as Ismail Sani and as “Halima Tahir.” I am certain there are many more people he has scammed whom I do not know.
I am sharing his details in the hope that Bayero University, whose proud alumnus I am, will act against this criminal who is dragging the school’s name in the mud.
I am also done helping strangers. The torrents of emails I have been receiving from total strangers since I published the previous scam story should stop. I am no Dangote. In fact, I doubt Dangote himself would still be rich if he granted the requests I have been receiving these past few days.
