Appeal Court jails Yusufu 6 years, slams N22.9bn fine on pension thief

Five years after John Yusufu was convicted with an option of N750, 000 fine by an Abuja High Court, the Court of Appeal in Abuja on Wednesday reversed the lower court decision and sentenced Yusufu to 6 years imprisonment and slammed a whopping N22.9billion fine on him

Yusufu, a federal civil servant and one of the six defendants being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for stealing N32.8 billion police pension fund and was convicted in a controversial manner by Justice Abubakar Talba in 2013. He was asked to pay a fine of N750,000.

But the ridiculous punishment of a fine generated an outrage and in the midst of the public outcry over the sentence, the National Judicial Council (NJC) suspended Judtice Talba for about nine months.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the lower court that relied on a plea bargain agreement of April 26, 2013 , the EFCC latter approached the appellate court to set aside the judgment of the lower court.

Delivering judgement on the appeal filed by the prosecuting EFCC, the Court of Appeal unanimously held that “the sentence of the trial court, does not serve as deterrence to both the convict and others.”

It further held that the three counts involving Yusufu (Counts 17, 18 and 19) clearly stated the amounts for which the EFCC 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.”

Consequently, the Court of Appeal held that the lower court 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; on Counts 18, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an addition of fine of N1.4billion; on counts 19, the Respondent is hereby sentenced to two years imprisonment with an addition of fine of N1.5billion ”. The sentence is to run consecutively and the fine is to be cumulative”.

The EFCC had on the five grounds of the appeal, questioned the judicious and judicial exercise of discretion by Justice Talba who imposed the sentence on the respondent after the defendant had pleaded guilty to the three count charge ( Counts 17, 18 and 19 of the charge), and admitted converting an aggregate sum of over N24 billion of Police Pension fund into his personal use.

In a related development, the Supreme Court on March 9 dismissed the appeal by Onyia Ifeanyi, seeking to upturn his conviction and 7 years imprisonment passed on him on November 28, 2013 by the Federal High Court Enugu presided over by Justice M.L. Shuaibu.

The appellant was sentenced for the offence of obtaining by false pretence and being in possession of documents containing false pretence.

The appellant had lodged an appeal against it at the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal but lost as the court affirmed the decision of the trial court.

Still not satisfied with the decision of the appellate court, the convict proceeded to the Supreme Court.

The apex court in a unanimous judment on March 9, affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeal.