Supreme Court affirms five years jail time for ex-lawmaker Farouk Lawan

The Supreme Court, on Friday, affirmed five years of jail time for a former federal lawmaker, Farouk Lawan, who was convicted of receiving a $500,000 bribe in 2012 during a legislative probe into the fuel subsidy regime.

Upholding the former lawmaker’s conviction, a five-member panel of the court in its unanimous judgement, dismissed his appeal challenging the decision of the Court of Appeal which had also affirmed his conviction by the trial court.

In the lead judgement prepared by John Okoro but read by Tijjani Abubakar on Friday, the Supreme Court held that Mr Lawan’s appeal lacked merit.

The Court of Appeal, in February 2022, narrowly affirmed Mr Lawan’s conviction after exonerating him of two out of the three counts he was earlier jailed for by the trial court,

As a result of the partial acquittal, the Court of Appeal reduced the seven years of jail time imposed on him by the trial court in February 2021 to five years.

Friday’s judgement of the Supreme Court, being the final stage of appeal, seals Mr Lawan’s fate as a convict.

He is now in his third of the five years he is to serve in jail, starting from June when he was sentenced by the trial court.

The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court in Abuja, had in June 2021, convicted Mr Lawan, a four-time member of the House of Representatives, to seven years’ imprisonment for receiving a N500,000 bribe while serving as the chairman of the House’s ad-hoc committee investigating the fraud around fuel subsidy in 2012.

Angela Otaluka, the trial judge, found Mr Lawan guilty of all three counts of corruption and bribery.

Delivering judgment in the case, Ms Otaluka said Mr Lawan demanded N3 million and received $500,000 from Femi Otedola, a Nigerian billionaire oil mogul in 2012.

He took the bribe to remove Mr Otedola’s oil company, Zenon Oil and Gas, from the list of firms indicted for fraud in the fuel subsidy regime, the judge ruled.

“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.

Appeal Court decision

Mr Lawan appealed against the trial court’s decision at the Court of Appeal, which ended up exonerating him of two out of the three counts he was convicted of by the trial court.

Dismissing the first two counts, a three-member bench of the Court of Appeal led by the court’s president, Monica Dongban-Mensem, unanimously ruled that the prosecution failed to prove that Mr Lawan demanded and agreed to accept a $3 million bribe from Mr Otedola to exonerate the businessman’s company from the list of firms indicted for fuel subsidy fraud in 2012.

The decision capitalised on a major investigative flaw in the case, with the court holding that the prosecution failed to establish whether it was Mr Otedola who offered the bribe or it was Mr Lawan who asked for it.

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David Igbodo, the police investigative officer, who testified as the second prosecution witness (PW2), “was evasive” at the trial court on the issue of the telephone conversations the two men had on the bribery, Mrs Dongban-Mensem said in her lead judgement.

She said the prosecution could have obtained the call logs of both men to determine who initiated the bribery conversation, but they failed to so do.

“The respondent did not find it necessary to contact the service providers to establish that the appellant demanded $ 3 million from PW5 (Mr Otedola),” she said.

She added that Mr Otedola’s claim that Mr Lawan asked for the bribe was not corroborated by any evidence.

“There is no scintilla of evidence from PW2 (Mr Igbodo) establishing or proving that the appellant (Mr Lawan) corruptly asked for $3 million from PW5 (Mr Otedola). There is also no evidence that the appellant agreed to accept $ 3 million from PW5 to remove Zenon Oil and Gas Limited and AP Petroleum from the list of indicted firms,” the judge held.

Dismissing the two charges, she held: “There is a very big lacuna in Counts 1 and 2”.

“There is no compelling evidence against the appellant in Counts 1 and 2,” she added.

But the panel affirmed the decision of the lower court that Mr Lawan, indeed, accepted a $500,000 bribe from Mr Otedola, an offence that attracted five years’ imprisonment at the lower court.

Mrs Dongban-Mensem held that Mr Lawan’s claim that he collected the $500,000 as evidence of bribery against Mr Otedola did not hold water.

The judge pointed out from the trial court’s records that Mr Lawan admitted that he did not report the money he received from Mr Otedola to any law enforcement agency.

“It is curious that he accepted the $500,000 as evidence of bribe but failed to report it to any law enforcement agency,” she held.

She also referred to the testimony of one of Mr Lawan’s contemporaries at the House of Representatives, Adams Jagaba, who testified as the fourth prosecution witness (PW4) to the detriment of the convict’s line of defence.

Mr Jagaba said it was untrue that Mr Lawan submitted the money to him as an exhibit with a cover letter.

“No such money or memo was given to PW4,” the court held.

Affirming Mr Lawan’s conviction and sentence of five years imprisonment on the charge of taking a $500,000 bribe from Mr Otedola, the court held that the prosecution proved it “beyond reasonable doubt”.

The Court of Appeal affirmed both the conviction and the sentence passed by the lower court on the offence. But it discharged and acquitted him regarding the two other counts of demanding and agreeing to accept $3 million from Mr Otedola to clear his company.