Bribery: Appeal reduces Farouk Lawan’s jail term

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has reduced the jail term of a former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan, from seven to five years.

A three-member panel of justices led by the president, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, on Thursday, discharged and acquitted Lawan on two of the charges he was convicted of by an FCT High Court.

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Lawa, who was the Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy Regime, was arraigned in 2013 after he allegedly demanded for a bribe of $3million from billionaire businessman, Femi Otedola, who accused him of receiving the sum of $500,000.

The bribe was said to help influence the removal of the name of his oil company from the list of indicted companies in the fuel subsidy scam of 2012.

On an appeal by Lawan, the panel held that the prosecution failed to prove that he demanded and agreed to accept the sum from Otedola, to exonerate his company from the list of indicted firms.

Lawan was in June, 2021, convicted on the three count charges preferred against him by the federal government with a sentence of five years each for the first two counts, and seven years for the last count, all to run concurrently.