Supreme Court Orders Fresh Trial of Sule Lamido, Sons over ₦1.35bn Money Laundering
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the resumption of trial of former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, and two of his sons, Mustapha and Aminu, over alleged money laundering involving about ₦1.35 billion.
In a unanimous decision, a five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Inyang Okoro set aside the judgment of the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal, which had struck out the charges and discharged the defendants.
The Supreme Court faulted the appellate court for terminating the case on technical grounds and consequently ordered that the matter be returned to the Federal High Court for continuation of trial.
The judgment arose from two separate appeals, marked SC/CR/921/2023 and SC/CR/920/2023, filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against Lamido and his son, Mustapha.
In a related decision, the apex court also upheld the confiscation of $40,000 undeclared cash found on Lamido’s son, Aminu.
Aminu was arrested by EFCC operatives on December 11, 2012, at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport while en route to Egypt, after he failed to declare the $40,000 he was carrying, having only declared $10,000 to the Nigeria Customs Service.
He was subsequently charged with false declaration of foreign currency under the Money Laundering Act. On July 12, 2015, the Federal High Court in Kano convicted him and ordered the forfeiture of 25 per cent of the undeclared sum to the federal government.
That conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Kaduna on December 7, 2015. Aminu’s further appeal was dismissed on Friday by the Supreme Court, which upheld the forfeiture order.
