The Supreme Court today provided a blow to the hopes of a previous legislator, Farouk Lawan, by dismissing his appeal versus a five-year prison term for bribery.
Lawan, who worked as chairman of a House of Representatives ad-hoc committee examining fuel aid scams in 2012, was condemned in 2021 of requiring and accepting a $500,000 kickback from business person Femi Otedola.
The preliminary seven-year sentence bied far by a Federal Capital Territory High Court was minimized to 5 years on appeal. Lawan pushed his case even more, looking for to reverse the conviction completely.
In a consentaneous choice, the Supreme Court, led by Justice Tijani Abubakar, saw no benefit in Lawan’s arguments and promoted the lower court’s judgment. This gives an end an almost decade-long legal legend coming from the fuel aid scandal that rocked Nigeria’s oil market.
The court’s decision highlighted the prosecution’s effective presentation that Lawan, charged with discovering corruption, had himself caught it. Proof provided at trial, consisting of video recordings of the allurement deal, showed important in protecting the conviction.