Appeal Court reduces Farouk Lawan jail term to 5 years
Court of Appeal in Abuja presided over by its President, Justice Monica Dongban Mensem, has reduced to five years the seven years jail term handed Mallam Farouk Lawan, a former House of Representatives member, by Mrs Angela Otaluka, a judge of Federal Capital Territory High Court, Apo, Abuja.
The FCT High Court judge had on July 22, 2021, convicted the former lawmaker in a $3million subsidy probe bribe charges preferred against him by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC.
In the wake of the nationwide fuel subsidy protests in 2012, the House of Representatives set up an Ad hoc Probe Panel with Lawan as the Chairman.
In the course of the committee’s work, Chairman of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, companies that was under probe, Mr. Femi Otedola accused Lawan of demanding $3 million from him to remove (Zenon) from the list of oil companies allegedly involved in the petrol subsidy fraud in 2012. Otedola told a shocked probe committee that he gave $500,000 in cash to Lawan with the knowledge of the Department of State Service (DSS) out of the $3m he (Lawan) demanded.
Following the bribe scandal, ICPC arraigned Lawan on seven counts of bribery and for collecting dollars in cash.
While delivering judgment in Abuja on Thursday in the appeal filed by the convict, the Court of Appeal discharged and acquitted the former lawmaker on two out of the three counts on which he was convicted.
Dismissing the first two counts, a three-member panel led by the president of the appellate court, held that the prosecution failed to prove that Lawan demanded and agreed to accept $3 milllion from Otedola to exonerate the company from the list of firms indicted for petrol subsidy fraud in 2012.
The Court of Appeal was convinced that the prosecution successfully proved their case at the lower court that Lawan, indeed, accepted a bribe of $500,000 from Otedola and subsequently affirmed the decision of the High Court to jail Lawan for five years on that count alone.
