Court sentences Olisa Metuh to 7 years imprisonment, to pay N375m to FG

- Ex-PDP spokesman Olisa Metuh has been found guilty in the N400 million money laundering charges slammed against him

- Metuh was found guilty of all the charges slammed against him by the EFCC

- The court reportedly handed Metuh seven years imprisonment and ordered him to pay N375million to the federal government

The Federal High Court in Abuja has found Olisa Metuh, a former spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), guilty of money laundering.

Channels TV reports that Justice Okon Abang gave the verdict on Tuesday, February 25.

The newspaper adds that the court found Metuh guilty on all the seven charges slammed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Legit.ng gathers that the presiding judge held that Metuh was aware that the N400 million paid into his company, Destra Investment Ltd, was a proceed of unlawful activities of the former National Security Adviser, Col Mohammed Sambo Dasuki.

The judge also held that Metuh did not have any evidence to show that ex-President Goodluck Jonathan authorised the release of the fund purportedly for security reasons without a contractual agreement as he claimed.

The former PDP spokesman was, therefore, convicted on all the charges.

Metuh, according to updates from Vanguard, was sentenced to seven years on counts 1, 2, 4 and 7 of the charge, the count handed him five years on count 3, three years on count 5 and 6, the newspaper reports.

His firm was reportedly ordered to pay N25m with respect to both counts 5 and 6 of the charge.

The court also reportedly ordered Metuh to pay N375million to the federal government.

Justice Abang directed that his firm should be wound up with all funds standing to its credit forfeited to the government.

The court held that the sentence would run concurrently starting from Tuesday, February 25.

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Legit.ng had previously reported that the high court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Maitama, Abuja on Thursday, October 17, 2019, nullified Metuh's bid to stop his trial.

The presiding judge, Justice Ishaq Bello, in his verdict, nullified Metuh's the no-case application on the grounds that it lacks merit.

Justice Bello, therefore, ordered the former PDP spokesman to enter defence in prima facie case instituted against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Meanwhile, Metuh had earlier disclosed who released the money to him. He had claimed that it was former President Jonathan who disbursed the fund.

He denied claims that Dasuki released the sum to him.

Metuh's conviction has caused heated reactions on social media as Nigerians offer

In another news, a serving commissioner in Kano under the ministry of special duties, Mukhtar Ishaq, has been arrested by the EFCC in the state.

Ishaq's arrest came after the agency's reception of confirmed reports that he diverted the sum of N76 million while he was the chairman of Kano municipal local government area.

On its official Facebook page, the antigraft agency reported that the said sum was slated for projects, development and empowerment of residents and indigenes of the area.

Also, the anti-graft agency has arrested Muhammed Audu, a son of former Kogi governor Abubakar Audu, over alleged multi-billion fraud.

The arrest was linked to alleged fraud at the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF).

Though the precise amount involved was not disclosed at the time of Audu’s arrest, officials of the agency estimated the alleged loot to amount to multi-billion naira. They said the funds were in dollars and naira.

The anti-corruption fight does not also spare EFCC operatives as Hussaini Abubakar, a former staff of the anti-graft agency, was recently convicted of stealing.

Justice S.C Amadi of the Rivers state high court, Port Harcourt, on Wednesday, February 19, convicted Abubakar and sentenced him to one-year imprisonment.

In a tweet on its official Twitter handle, @officialEFCC, Nigeria's leading anti-graft agency reports that Abubakar was also handed a N150,000 (One hundred and fifty thousand naira ) option of fine, for stealing, contrary to section 383 (1) and punishable under section 390 of the criminal code CAP 37 vol. II Laws of Rivers state of Nigeria, 1999.

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Source: Legit.ng