By Alex Enumah
Justice Angela Otaluka of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Apo District of Abuja, on Tuesday sentenced a former House of Representatives member, Mr Farouk Lawan, to seven years imprisonment for demanding $3 million bribe from an oil magnate, Mr Femi Otedola.
Justice Otaluka handed down the jail term to Lawan after finding him guilty on all three-count criminal charges brought against him by the federal government.
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had slammed a three-count criminal charge against the former House Committee Chairman on Oil Subsidy Probe Panel.
Lawan was specially accused of demanding the sum of $3 million from Otedola so as to exonerate his firm, Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, from alleged complicity in the subsidy scheme under former President Goodluck Jonathan.
He was also accused of receiving the sum of $620,000 cash from Otedola being part of the bribe.
Delivering judgment in the suit Tuesday in Abuja, Justice Otaluka found the defendant guilty and subsequently sentenced him to seven years imprisonment on counts one and two of the charge and five years on count three.
The sentences however, are to run concurrently.
Meanwhile, the judge also ordered Lawan to refund the sum of $500,000 he collected from Otedola to the coffers of the federal government.
Lawan, before his arraignment was a four-term member of the House of Representatives, who represented Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State between 1999 and 2015.
In the case marked FCT/HR/CR/76/13, Lawan was alleged to have demanded the sum of $3 million for himself from the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, Otedola.
He was alleged to have collected $620,000 out of the amount with a view to removing Otedola’s company’s name from the list of firms indicted by the ad hoc committee for allegedly abusing the fuel subsidy regime in 2012.
