John Yusuf, the pension thief who five years ago, was given a slap on the wrist by Justice Abubakar Talba of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, for stealing N32.8billion police pension money, has finally gotten his deserved sanctions.
The Court of Appeal Abuja Division on Wednesday jailed him six years and also asked him to refund N22.9billion.
Justice
Talba had sentenced him to two years in jail, with the option of paying
a fine of N750,000. The judgment triggered national outrage. The ruling
by the appellate court was the climax of the appeal by the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission which on April 26, 2013 approached the
appellate court to set aside the judgment of the lower court. The five
grounds of the appeal, bordered on the exercise of discretion of the
Judge in imposing sentence on the respondent who pleaded guilty to the
three count charge, in which he admitted converting an aggregate sum of
over N24 billion of Police Pension fund into his personal use.
The EFCC asked the Appeal Court to decide “whether the trial judge
exercised his discretion judicially and judiciously when having
convicted the respondent of a three count charge of conversion of over
N3billion contrary to section 309 of the Penal Code, His Lordship
imposed two years imprisonment with an option of fine of N250, 000 on
each of the three counts”. Yusuf’s lawyers on 10 June 2015 raised a
preliminary objection on the competence of the appeal for which they
argued that the notice of appeal was filed outside the mandatory 90 days
and therefore in contravention of s. 24(2)(b) of the Court of Appeal
Act, 2010 (as Amended) and therefore urged the Court to dismiss the
appeal.
The Justices of the Court of Appeal, dismissed the
preliminary objection on the grounds that; “Having considered the
computation of time volunteered by both parties, the question to be
answered was whether the day the Judgment of the trial court was
delivered was to be inclusive in the computation of the mandatory 90
days for which a notice of appeal was to be filed? “That the day the
Judgment of the trial court was delivered being the 28 January, 2013,
was not to be included in the computation of the 90 days. “That since
the day of the Judgment is not included, the 90 days starts running from
the 29 January, 2013 and the 90 day will fall on a Sunday. “That by
virtue of s. 15(2) of the Interpretation Act CAP 123, where the last day
is a holiday, the counting shall continue until the end of the next
following day which is not a holiday. “That since the 90th day was a
Sunday and by virtue of s. 15 (5) of Interpretation Act, a Sunday is a
holiday, the next day which the notice of appeal was filed is within
time, hence the appeal is competent and is therefore allowed”.
Ruling
on the substantive matter, the Justices of the Court of Appeal held
unanimously that the three counts involving the respondent (Counts 17,
18 and 19) clearly stated the amounts for which the appellant alleged
that the respondent converted for his personal use. That the respondent
pleaded guilty to the three counts and thereby admitted to the
conversion of an aggregate sum of about N24billion to his personal use.
The
judges ruled that the sentence of the trial court, does not serve as
deterrence to both the convict and others. Consequently, they ruled that
the sentence is “hereby quashed and deserves to be reviewed as follows:
*on Counts 17, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years
imprisonment with an addition of fine of N20billion Naira; *on Counts
18, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an
addition of fine of 1.4billion Naira; *on counts 19, the Respondent is
hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an addition of fine of
1.5billion Naira”.
The prison sentence will run consecutively and the fine is to be cumulative.
Source:- Vanguardngr
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