The director general of the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign council, Dr Doyin Okupe, has paid the N13 million fine option for the two-year jail term he bagged for N240 million money laundering offence.
Recall that the presiding judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, had in a judgment on Monday, found Okupe guilty in 26 of the 59 counts preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Justice Ojukwu had ordered that the 26 counts, which attracted two-year jail-term each, would run concurrently.
However, the fudge gave the convict the option to pay N500, 000 fine on each of the counts, totalling N13 million.
She stated that should Okupe fail to pay the fine within a certain time frame, he should be taken to Kuje Correctional Centre to serve his prison term.
However, it was gathered that Okupe had paid the fine before the close of work.
The former senior special assistant on public affairs to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan was accused of receiving cash from the office of the former national security adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd).
Ojukwu found Okupe guilty of contravening sections 16(1) and (2) of the Money Laundering Act by accepting cash payments in excess of the threshold allowed under the Act, without going through a financial institution.
The judge said the NSA is not a financial institution and although the former president allegedly authorised the funds, he did not specify a cash payment in violation of the Money Laundering Act.
“I find the first defendant, Dr. Doyin Okupe, guilty on counts 34, 35, 36, to 59,” she ruled.
In counts 34 to 59, the convict was accused of receiving various sums of money ranging from N10 million on different occasions from 2012 to 2015 when he was SSA to Jonathan.
The said sum according to him was expended on running the office, payment of staff members and image laundering of the former president and his administration. But, the court, however, held that receiving such amounts in cash violated the Money Laundering Act.
Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the LP, Mr. Peter Obi, said Okupe’s conviction would not break his resolve to be Nigeria’s President.
Speaking during an interaction with journalists in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Obi said he was undaunted by the conviction and would continue with his campaign and allow the due process of law to take its course.
“I am hearing about it (the conviction) just like you. I am still studying what is coming out of the Court and everything. I believe in the rule of law. It is not going to demoralise me.
“Today, when I arrived Akwa Ibom somebody asked me why I haven’t been using my aircraft because it has been grounded and all that, and I said to him that nothing demoralises me.
“In my life, I have never stayed where they dropped me, otherwise, I would have been where they dropped me before. This election, if they like, let them do anything about people who are around me. I will get there,” Obi said.
On the impression that he does not have political structure to win the presidential election, he said he was determined to dismantle the existing political structure in the country which encouraged corruption and spread poverty among Nigerians.
“The structure they have today is the structure we want to destroy. It is the structure of criminality. It is structure that produced 133 million people living in poverty,
“It is the structure that produced 20 million out of school children. It is the structure that has made Nigeria surpass India in infant mortality. It is the structure that will destroy Nigeria and we want to destroy that structure,” he said.
Obi added that his priority would be how to secure a united Nigeria and pull people out of poverty.
He said if elected president of the country come 2023, he would work towards the realisation of the Ibaka Deep Seaport in Akwa Ibom.
“My problem is how to create a future and make Nigeria a productive and not a consuming nation,” he added.
