$3m bribery: S’court upholds Farouk Lawan’s conviction, five-year jail term

Lawan was the chairman of the house of representatives ad hoc committee probing the multi-billion naira petrol subsidy fraud in 2012.

He was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2021 for accepting a $500,000 bribe from Femi Otedola, then chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited — in what was a sting operation from the businessman.

Video footage had made the rounds on social media at the time, of Lawan stuffing wads of currency notes in his outfit and underneath his cap.

THE TRIAL

Lawan was accused of demanding $3 million from Femi Otedola to remove Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited (Otedola’s former company) from the list of oil companies allegedly involved in the petrol subsidy fraud in 2012.

Lawan, who was arraigned on seven counts of bribery by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), was alleged to have collected a $500,000 bribe from Otedola.

The charge was later amended to three counts.

On June 22, 2021, Angela Otaluka, judge of a federal capital territory high court in Apo, convicted the accused on all three counts and sentenced him to seven years imprisonment.

However, delivering judgment in the appeal filed by the convict, the court discharged and acquitted the former lawmaker on two out of the three counts on which he was convicted.

The jail term was also reduced to five years from seven years, as the court affirmed his conviction on the only remaining offence which the lower court punished with five years jail term.

Dismissing the first two counts, a three-member panel led by Monica Dongban-Mensem, appeal court president, held that the prosecution failed to prove that Lawan demanded and agreed to accept $3 million from Otedola to exonerate the company from the list of firms indicted for petrol subsidy fraud in 2012.

But the panel affirmed the decision of the lower court that Lawan, indeed, accepted a $500,000 bribe from Otedola.

In his appeal before the supreme court, Lawan had among other things, contended that he was not allowed to make a plea of allocutus (plea for leniency) by the trial court.

However, in the supreme court’s lead judgment prepared by Inyang Okoro but read on Friday by Tijjani Abubakar, the 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.”