The Supreme Court has affirmed the five-year prison sentence of Farouk Lawan, a former member of the House of Representatives, who was convicted of accepting a $500,000 bribe from businessman Femi Otedola.
Lawan had appealed to the apex court to overturn the February 24, 2022, judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja, which sentenced him to five years in prison while discharging him on two of the three counts in the corruption case filed against him by the Federal Government. In the leading judgment drafted by Justice John Okoro but delivered by Justice Tijjani Abubakar, the Supreme Court declared Lawan’s appeal meritless and dismissed it.
A unanimous decision by the five-member panel upheld the 2022 ruling of the Court of Appeal, confirming Lawan’s five-year sentence specifically on count three of the three-count charge he faced at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory.
As the chairman of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the multi-billion naira petrol subsidy fraud in 2012, Lawan was convicted for allegedly soliciting a $3 million bribe from Femi Otedola to exclude Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited (Otedola’s former company) from the list of oil companies implicated in the 2012 petrol subsidy fraud.
After initially receiving a seven-year jail sentence from a Federal High Court, the Court of Appeal later acquitted Lawan on two of the three counts, ultimately reducing his sentence to five years.