A
former governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, his two sons Aminu and
Mustapha and one Aminu Wada Abubakar are to remain in Kano Central
Prsion till September 28, 2015.
The quartet were remanded in
prison custody Thursday morning by Justice Evelyn Anyadike of the
Federal High Court sitting in Kano after they were docked on a 28-count
charge of corruption and money laundering brought against them by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
They were arraigned alongside four companies where the Lamidos are believed to have interest.
The
companies are Bamaina Holdings Limited, Bamiana Company Nigeria
Limited, Bamaina Aluminum Limited and Speeds International Limited.
Lamido
is said to have abused his position as governor of Jigawa State between
2007 and 2015, by awarding contracts to companies where he has
interest, using his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha as front.
One of
the counts in the charge reads, “That you Alhaji Sule Lamido (while
being the Governor of Jigawa State, Nigeria), Aminu Sule Lamido,
Mustapha Sule Lamido, Bamaina Holdings Limited, Bamaina Company Nigeria
Limited and Speeds International Limited between 15th October and 18th
December, 2008 within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court did
convert an aggregate sum of N124, 649, 915 (One Hundred and Twenty Four
Million, Six Hundred and Forty Nine Thousand, Nine Hundred and Fifteen
Naira) paid by Dantata & Sawoe Limited into the account of Speeds
International Limited domiciled with an old generation Bank at Kano
which fund you reasonably ought to have known to be proceeds of an
unlawful act of Alhaji Sule Lamido who was a Public Officer within the
meaning of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers as prescribed under
the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, 1999 ( as amended ) to wit; engaging in private business by a
public officer, using the said company in which he is a director and a
shareholder, and to whose account he is a signatory; with the aim of
concealing the illicit origin of the said sum and you thereby committed
an offence punishable under Section 14 (A) of the Money Laundering Act,
2004.”
However when the charges were read to the accused persons they pleaded not guilty.
Their
counsel, Offiong Offiong, SAN told the court that he had filed
application for bail and urged the court to consider granting the
accused persons bail.
But prosecuting counsel, Chile Okoroma, requested for time to respond to the application.
He
prayed the court to remand the accused persons in prison custody as the
EFCC holding facilities in Abuja and Kano were already overstretched.
Justice
Anyadike consequently remanded the accused persons in prison custody
pending consideration of their bail application and adjourned to
September 28, 2015.
After the judge’s pronouncement, a mild drama
ensued between Lamido and the Deputy Chief Registrar of Federal High
court, Barrister Solomon Akpedah.
Lamido was asked to proceed to
board the waiting van taking him to Kano central prison when he
exclaimed, “you mean I’m now a prisoner?!”.
Akpedah, however, replied that “no sir, you are not a prisoner”.
The
arraignment of Lamido and his children was not without incident as an
unruly crowd of supporters loyal to the former governor threatened to
disrupt the court session.
It took reinforcement of the detachment of policemen at the court to maintain order.
The
travails of the Lamidos began in 2012 when one of his sons, Aminu was
arrested by Operatives of the EFCC at the Aminu Kano International
Airport, Kano for failing to declare a sum of forty thousand United
States Dollars ($40,000).
He was prosecuted and convicted with 50 percent of the undeclared sum forfeited to the Federal Government.
But
the enquiries into the source of the funds led investigators into the
closely guarded web of corruption and money laundering involving members
of the former first family of Jigawa State and their cronies.
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