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 Prision 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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