The Supreme Court, on Friday, upheld the judgement that convicted a former member of the house of representatives and chairman, ad-hoc committee on fuel subsidy probe, Mr. Farouk Lawan, to five years in prison for bribery.
In a unanimous decision, the five-member panel dismissed Lawan’s appeal challenging his conviction by the lower court saying it (appeal) lacked merit.
In the lead judgement prepared by Justice Inyang Okoro but read by Tijjani Abubakar, the Supreme Court held that Mr Lawan’s appeal lacked merit.
Recall that an FCT High Court had on June 22, 2021, sentenced the former lawmaker to seven years in prison.
Justice Angela Otaluka found Lawan who represented Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State guilty of demanding an aggregate sum of $ 3million from the chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Ltd, Mr Femi Otedola, while he (Lawan) served as the chairman of the ad-hoc committee investigating the fuel subsidy fraud in 2012.
The trial judge, Angela Otaluka, held that Lawan demanded $3m and received $500,000 from Otedola in 2012 to expunge Otedola’s company from the list of firms indicted for fraud in the fuel subsidy regime.
The trial court held that the Defendant acted in breach of section 17 (1) (a), section 8(1) (a) (b) (ii), and section 23 (i) of the Corrupt practices and other Related Offences Act, 2000, and committed an offence punishable under section 8 (1) 17 (1) and 23(3) of the same Act.
The court said it was satisfied that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) successfully established a criminal case against the defendant and convicted him on all the three-count charges preferred against him.
“The prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant (Mr Lawan) demanded and received the sum of $500,000 from Mr Femi Otedola in order to exonerate his oil firm from an investigation by the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee on fuel subsidy probe,” the judge said.
Whereas the defendant was handed down a seven-year-jail term, on counts 1 and 2, the court sentenced him to 5 years on count 3.
Not satisfied with the judgement, Lawan approached the Court of Appeal in February 2022 which exonerated him of two out of the three counts he was earlier jailed for by the trial court,
Consequently, the Court of Appeal reduced the seven-year sentence handed down by the trial court in February 2021 to five years.
He had, had among other things, contended that he was not allowed to make a plea for leniency by the trial court before it jailed him.
However, in its judgement the Supreme Court said it was “crystal clear that failure of the trial court to call for allocution, did not vitiate the sentence passed on the appellant.”
Meanwhile, Lawan is in his third of the five years he is to serve in jail, starting from June 2021 when he was sentenced by the trial court
