CASE NUMBER 10914:

FAROUK LAWAN, THE LAWMAKER GOES TO JAIL

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Alleged Perpetrators(s)

Farouk Lawan

Location (Town / State)

Abuja, Abuja

Date of Event

22 Jun 2021

Date of republication

22 June every year

Case category (Choose all that apply)

Case Summary

The high court in Abuja has sentenced the former House of Reps member Farouk Lawal to 7-years imprisonment, for receiving a $3 million bribe from oil magnate Femi Otedola.

Full story

Lawan was elected in 1999, 2003, 2007, into the house of Assembly and again in 2011, making it 4 times elected member. He was the Chairman of the House Committee on Finance under the former Speaker Aminu Bello Masari. Lawan led the Integrity Group, an alliance of Representatives opposed to Etteh, during the late-2007 corruption scandal that caused the former Speaker of the House Patricia Etteh to resign. Little did he know that he will be involved in a fraud that will lead him to prison.

In February 2013, Lawan was charged with corruption after he allegedly accepted $500,000 from Femi Otedola, a Nigerian billionaire oil tycoon, as part of a $3 million bribe Lawan had solicited from Otedola. Otedola claimed that Lawan demanded the bribe in order to have his company, Zenon, removed from the list of companies that the committee had implicated in the scandal. The initial fuel subsidy report said that Zenon owed more than $1 million to the government, but legislators later voted to remove the firm from the final report. Lawan said that he accepted the money in order to expose blackmail and informed the committee and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) about it.
He was arraigned by ICPC on June 22nd, 2021, after seemingly endless case transfers of the nine-year-old trial. The former Federal lawmaker representing Kano state, Farouk Lawan, was sentenced to seven-year imprisonment over $500,000 bribery allegations. The judgment was in Suit No FCT/HC/CR/76/2013 between the federal government and Farouk M. Lawan. The former lawmaker was found guilty of all the three counts charges of bribery.
The ex-lawmaker’s ordeal reportedly started in 2013 when the now Minister of State Labour, Festus Keyamo, then into private practice, gave the Nigerian police a one-week ultimatum to prosecute the ex-lawmaker. When the ultimatum given to the police lapsed, the activist lawyer proceeded with his threat to personally prosecute Lawan and Secretary of the Committee, Mr. Boniface Emenalo, for alleged bribe taking. Following a media report that the police had concluded investigation on the alleged crime and passed their findings to the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Keyamo, again, sent a draft charge against the accused to the then AGF, Mohammed Adoke, to prosecute them; failure of which he threatened to commence a private prosecution against the politician.
In 2017, the ex-lawmaker was re-arraigned at Abuja High Court sitting at Jabi, on an amended three-count bribery charge, even as the anti-graft agency later amended the charge and converted Emenalo, the secretary of the Committee to a prosecution witness. Prior to the prosecution of July, 5th, 2017, Emenalo had earlier given his evidence-in-chief before Justice Angela Otaluka of an Abuja High Court at Lugbe. Justice Otaluka was, however, directed to hands off the case by the then Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory, Justice Ishaq Bello, following a petition by Lawan, accusing her of being biased, the accusation being leveled on the second trial judge in the matter, Justice Adebukola Banjoko of the FCT High Court at Gudu. Justice Banjoko thereafter withdrew from the case on November 18, 2014, following Lawan’s petition to the CJ that the judge was close to Otedola, who was billed to testify against him.
It was gathered that the ICPC had earlier produced four out of its five proposed witnesses to testify against the ex-lawmaker, with Otedola scheduled to mount the witness box before the matter was withdrawn from Justice Otaluka. ICPC lawyer, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, had equally petitioned the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN, accusing Lawan of using frivolous allegations to stall his trial. Awomolo, in his letter received by the AGF June 8, 2017, stressed that Lawan had become “notorious for making undeserved allegation when he feels he is likely to lose.”
During the trial, the prosecution had earlier tendered a video clip that showed Lawan as collecting a parcel from Otedola. The video was presented before Justice Otaluka by the Department of State Service (DSS) through its Principal Officer in charge of Technical Operations, Mr. David Ojataha. On the directive of the Judge, the video which lasted about three minutes was played in the open court by Awomolo, the prosecuting counsel. Awomolo said: “My lord the videos I just played are those of Mr. Femi Otedola and Hon. Farouq Lawan, where there was an exchange of parcel at Otedola’s house in Aso Drive, Abuja.” In his evidence-in-chief, Ojataha told the court that he was saddled with the responsibility of recording the video by the DSS owing to his background as an Electronic and Telecommunication Engineer.

However, the ex-lawmaker’s lawyer, Chief Ozekhome, while cross-examining the witness, said the device used in playing the CD had no imprint of time and event in the video. Ozekhome consequently contended that there was nothing to show that what the defendant collected from Otedola was bribe money. Ozekhome equally insisted there was also nothing in the video to suggest bribery was discussed because such words like “bribe” was not heard in the video.

According to the ICPC, the ex-lawmaker Lawan, acted contrary to section 17 (1) (a), section 8(1) (a) (b) (ii), and section 23 (i) of the Corrupt practices and other Related Offences Act, 2000 and punishable under section 8 (1) 17 (1) and 23(3) of the same Act.

In his testimony, Emenalo, who testified as the PW-1 gave reasons why he accepted $100,000 from Otedola. The witness told the court he took the money to expose Otedola’s move to compromise members of the subsidy committee, pointing out the sum was in $100 bills. He informed the court that the first meeting he had with Otedola took place on Sunday, April 22, 2012, with a follow-up meeting between them on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at the oil mogul’s Abuja residence at Aso Drive, Maitama. The witness further told the court he subsequently handed the money over to the ex-lawmaker as exhibit. Though Emenalo denied allegation that he received $20,000 bribe from Otedola during their first meeting, he admitted it was during the second meeting that Otedola gave him the $100,000.

Having gone through submissions by both parties, Justice Otaluka held that from the pool of evidence before the court, the prosecution had established a case of corrupt practices against the defendant in Count One of the charges which borders on corruptly requesting a bribe of three million dollars ($3m). The court ruled that the defendant acted in breach of section 17 (1) (a), section 8(1) (a) (b) (ii), and section 23 (i) of the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Act, 2000, and committed an offence punishable under section 8 (1) 17 (1) and 23(3) of the same Act.
Justice Otaluka also declared that the court was satisfied that the ICPC successfully established a criminal case against the defendant, and therefore convicted the defendant on all three-count charges the ICPC preferred against him. The judge further held that the embattled former lawmaker’s conduct had elements of corruption.
“Count One of the charges is not based on suspicion but on credible evidence. The defendant (Mr Lawan) corruptly asked for $3million and received a $500,000 bribe in two tranches from Femi Otedola. “The conduct of the defendant established the ingredients of corruption which he was charged to court, as he did not report any case of inducement to any law enforcement agency,” the judge affirmed further. While the defendant bagged 7-year jail term on counts 1 and 2 of the charges, the court handed him 5 years for count 3, and ruled that the sentence would run concurrently.

External links/URLs

https://www.blueprint.ng/after-9-years-of-trial-otedolas-3m-bait-lands-farouk-lawal-in-jail/
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2021/06/3m-bribery-court-sentences-ex-rep-farouk-lawan-to-7-years-imprisonment/

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