Court Found Metuh Guilty Of N400m Fraud, Dasuki Free.
The former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh has had his judgment delivered to him, and it doesn’t seem to be pretty, he has been found guilty of fraud to the tune of four hundred million nairas.
On Tuesday, Metuh was found guilty along with his firm, Destra Investments Limited, which he used while in office as a front through which the frauds were perpetrated, the federal high court in Abuja found him guilty of the first out of about seven-count charges that were brought against him.
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Justice Okon Abang, who was the presiding judge in the case, ruled that Sambo Dasuki, while he was the National Security Adviser, unlawfully transferred to the defendant, and former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, the sum of N400 million in November 2014.
According to reports, in his ruling, Justice Okon asserted that since Metuh’s Destra Investments Limited, had no contractual relationship with the National Security Adviser at the time of the disbursement of the funds, Metuh and his firm had reasonable evidence to have known that the sum of N400 million paid to them was illegal, Justice Okon thus noted that in transferring the said money to Metuh, Dasuki was “in breach of public trust”.
The council to the former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh in his closing statement argued that since the arrowhead of the money laundering case; Dasuki Sambo; has not been convicted for money laundering in his ongoing trial, for the predicate offense of corruption and breach of public trust, his client should not be convicted.
Justice Okon, however, dismissed this argument saying,
“the predicate offense and the money laundering offense are intertwined,
“The success or failure of the predicate offense does not determine the success or failures of the money laundering offense.”
A businessman who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity said that this case typifies the Nigerian peculiar judicial system, he said
“What did you expect from a judicial system that is always used as a weapon that the ruling party settles scores with,
“How else does one explain a situation where the star player in the case, the man in the eye of the kill and divide storm, who actually did the dividing of public funds walking free while the one who was given his share is already going to jail, that’s Nigerian judicial system for you”
