Supreme Court docket upholds five-year sentence of Farouk Lawan

The Supreme Court docket has upheld the five-year sentence of former Home of Representatives member, Farouk Lawan, for receiving a bribe of $500,000 from businessman Femi Otedola.

The previous lawmaker had approached the apex courtroom to put aside the judgement delivered by the Court docket of Enchantment in Abuja on February 24, 2022, which sentenced him to a five-year jail time period and discharged him on two out of the three counts on the corruption cost introduced in opposition to him by the Federal Authorities.

Within the lead judgment ready by Justice John Okoro however learn by Justice Tijjani Abubakar, the apex courtroom held that Lawan’s enchantment was with out benefit and dismissed it.

The five-member panel unanimously affirmed the 2022 judgment of the Court docket of Enchantment which upheld Lawan’s sentencing to 5 years in respect of solely depend three on the three-count cost on which he was tried on the Excessive Court docket of the Federal Capital Territory.

Lawan who was the then chairman of the Home of Representatives ad-hoc committee probing the multi-billion naira petrol subsidy fraud in 2012, was convicted after he was accused of demanding $3 million from Femi Otedola to take away Zenon Petroleum and Gasoline Restricted (Otedola’s former firm) from the checklist of oil corporations allegedly concerned within the petrol subsidy fraud in 2012.

Months after being convicted by a Federal Excessive courtroom and handed a seven-year jail sentence, the courtroom of enchantment discharged and acquitted the previous lawmaker on two out of the three counts on which he was convicted. His jail sentence was thereafter lowered to 5 years.