By Ikechukwu Nnochiri, ABUJA
The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Monday, sentenced a former Senior Special Assistant, SSA, on Media to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Dr Doyin Okupe, to two years in prison.
The court, in a judgement that was delivered by Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, convicted Okupe who is the Director General of the Presidential Campaign Council of the Labour Party, LP, for acting in breach of the money laundering Act.
Though the defendant was found guilty on counts 34 to 59 of the charge the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, preferred against him, he was discharged and acquitted of counts 1 to 33 of the charge which bordered on corruption.
Whereas the defendant was handed two years on each of the 26 counts of the charge that he was found guilty of, the court, however, held that his sentence would run concurrently.
In the alternative, trial Justice Ojukwu held that Okupe could pay a fine of N500, 000, on each of the counts upon which he was convicted.
Even though the court said it would not make an order for the defendant to be kept in prison custody since his sentence was with the option of a fine, it however stressed that the fine must be paid before 4 pm on Monday.
Earlier before the sentence was passed, Okupe’s wife, Omolala, and his son, Adesunkanmi, took turns and pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy.
Similarly, a former Governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, urged the court to take cognizance of the fact that the defendant was a first-time offender.
The trio, including Okupe’s lawyer, Mr. Francis Oronsaye, in their respective allocutus ( plea for leniency), equally drew the attention of the court to the deteriorating health of the defendant.
In her judgement, Justice Ojukwu said she was persuaded by all their interventions, which she said attested to the good character of the defendant.
The court said it had also observed the defendant’s demeanour while his trial lasted as well as the fact that he had no previous record of conviction.
It held that evidence before it established that Okupe had in the discharge of his official duties, accepted cash payments that were above the statutory threshold, without recourse to a financial institution.
Okupe was said to have received funds amounting to over N700 million, from the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, while Col. Sambo Dasuki, retired, was in charge.
Justice Ojukwu held that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, successfully established its case against the defendant.
The anti-graft agency closed its case after it called a total of six witnesses that testified before the court.
One of the witnesses, Shuaibu Salisu, who was a former Director, Administration and Finance in the office of the NSA, but later transferred to the National Intelligence Agency, NIA, had in his Evidence-in-Chief, told the court that he in 2012, directed to make a payment of N50million to Okupe, after he visited the then NSA, Dasuki.
He said: “Okupe provided his account details, where I paid the amount into the bank account of Value Trust Investment.”
Salisu told the court that he was further directed by the ONSA to be paying N10m monthly to Okupe for a period of over two years, which he said was reduced to a monthly N5m towards the end of 2014 due to paucity of funds.
He said he made other payments to Okupe as directed, adding that he was at a point, instructed to pay the defendant N6m.
Salisu further revealed that sometime in 2014, the then NSA, directed him to pay the sum of N35m to an account provided by Okupe, as well as handed N50m in cash to the defendant on Dasuki’s directive.
He told the court that he only obeyed directives in all the payments he made to Okupe and didn’t know what the monies were meant for.
When asked if there were evidence of the payments, the witness told the court that he usually provided Okupe with the payment vouchers, which he usually signed.
When also asked if all the payments were captured in payment vouchers, Salisu replied in the negative, insisting however that Okupe was the only person that received payments from ONSA.
“Anybody that the NSA directs that payment be made to, we make payment,” the witness added.
Salisu told the court that he had no reason to believe that the payments he made were from an illegal source, noting that while some of the payment instructions he carried out while working in the ONSA came verbally, others were written instructions.
However, in the case of the payments that were made to Okupe, he disclosed that all the instructions were verbal.
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