Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, has\u00a0 thrown out a seven-point, no-case submission of former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido challenging his trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stating that he has a case to answer before the court.<\/p>\n
She gave the ruling on Monday, September 19, 2022.<\/p>\n
Lamido is standing trial, alongside two of his sons:\u00a0Aminu Sule Lamido,\u00a0 Mustapha Sule Lamido,\u00a0 his business associate, Aminu Wada Abubakar and four companies:\u00a0\u00a0 Bamaina Company Nigeria Limited,\u00a0 \u00a0Bamaina Aluminium Limited, Speeds International Limited\u00a0 and Batholomew Darlignton Agoha\u00a0in a 37-count further amended charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N712,008,035.<\/p>\n
Count\u00a0 one of the charges read: \u201cThat you\u00a0ALHAJI SULE LAMIDO\u00a0(while being the Governor of Jigawa State, Nigeria),\u00a0on or about 15th\u00a0of December, 2008\u00a0 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court in your account in the name of Bamaina Holdings (also referred to as\u00a0 Bamaina Holding Limited) domiciled at Unity Bank Plc. Kano, converted the sum of\u00a0N14,850,000.00 (Fourteen Million, Eight Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira)\u00a0being the value of Intercontinental Bank Plc.(now Access Bank Plc) cheque no. 00000025 paid by Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company Nigeria\u00a0 Limited which represented the\u00a0 proceeds of your illegal act to wit: using your position as a public officer for gratification\u00a0 by\u00a0 purportedly obtaining contracts for companies in which you have interest from Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company Nigeria Limited which was awarded contracts by Jigawa State Government with the aim of concealing its illicit origin and thereby committed an offence contrary to\u00a0Section 14(1) (a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004 and punishable under Section 14(1) of the same Act\u201d<\/p>\n
Count thirteen reads: \u201cThat you, ALHAJI SULE LAMIDO\u00a0(while being the Governor of Jigawa State, Nigeria),\u00a0on or about 2nd\u00a0 of March , 2012 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court in your account in the name Bamaina Holdings (also referred to as\u00a0 Bamaina Holding Limited) domiciled at Unity Bank Plc. Kano, converted the aggregate sum of\u00a0 N61,919,000.00 (Sixty One Million, Nine Hundred and Nineteen Thousand Naira)\u00a0being the value\u00a0 of four Sterling Bank Plc cheques nos. 04981304, 04981305, 04981307, 04981308, three Diamond Bank Plc cheque nos. 32909551,32909548, 32909550 and four Bank PHB Plc cheques nos. 24444376, 24444374, 24444375 and 24444372 paid by Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company Nigeria\u00a0 Limited which represented\u00a0the\u00a0 proceeds of bribery and corruption to wit: using your position as a public officer for gratification by purportedly obtaining contracts for companies in which you have interest from Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company Nigeria Limited which was awarded contracts by Jigawa State Government with the aim of concealing their illicit origin and you thereby committed an offence contrary to\u00a0Section 15(1) (a)\u00a0of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011\u00a0 and punishable under section 15(1) of the same Act\u201d<\/p>\n
Count Thirty-two reads: \u201cThat you\u00a0ALHAJI SULE LAMIDO\u00a0 (while being the Governor of Jigawa State, Nigeria), AMINU SULE LAMIDO, MUSTAPHA SULE LAMIDO,\u00a0and\u00a0BAMAINA COMPANY NIGERIA LIMITED\u00a0on or about 3rd\u00a0of April 2012\u00a0 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court retained in the account of Bamaina Company Nigeria Limited domiciled with Skye Bank Plc Kano the\u00a0 sum of\u00a0N57,000,000.00 (Fifty Seven Million\u00a0Naira )\u00a0transferred from the account of\u00a0 Bamaina Holdings (also known and referred to as Bamaina Holdings Limited) at\u00a0 Unity Bank Plc Kano which fund you knew represented the proceeds of\u00a0 illegal\u00a0 act of Alhaji Sule Lamido who used his position as a public officer for\u00a0 gratification by obtaining purported contracts for Speeds International Limited, Gada Construction Company, and Bamaina Company Nigeria Limited from\u00a0 Dantata and Sawoe Construction Company Nigeria Limited, a company which was awarded contracts by the Jigawa State Government and thereby committed an offence contrary to\u00a0Section 17(a) of the\u00a0\u00a0Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 and punishable under Section 17 of the same Act\u201d<\/p>\n
Justice Ojukwu upheld the submissions of EFCC\u2019s counsel, Chile Okoroma, that Lamido had a case to answer and ordered him to open his defence at the next adjourned date of the matter.<\/p>\n
She adjourned the matter to November 8 to 11, 2022 for the former governor to open his defence.<\/p>\n
Lamido and his co-accused were first arraigned before Justice Evelyn Anyadike of the Federal High Court, sitting in Kano, on July 9, 2015 for allegedly misappropriating funds belonging to Jigawa State.\u00a0 He had been re-arraigned severally before his further arraignment before Justice Ojukwu on February 14, 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja, has\u00a0 thrown out a seven-point, no-case submission of former governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido challenging his trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, stating that he has a case to answer before the court. She gave the ruling on Monday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":56036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[164,174,238],"class_list":["post-59855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-efcc","tag-jigawa","tag-lamido"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}