The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the appeal filed by Aminu Sule Lamido, son of former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, and affirmed the judgments of the lower courts convicting him over the non-declaration of foreign currency.
In a unanimous judgment presided over by Justice Adamu Jauro but delivered by Justice Abubakar Sadiq Umar, the apex court upheld the decisions of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal, which found Aminu guilty of false declaration and failure to declare the sum of $40,000 to the Nigeria Customs Service.
Aminu, 34 at the time of filing the appeal, was arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on December 11, 2012, at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, while attempting to travel to Egypt. He was accused of declaring only the statutory $10,000 on the Customs Currency Declaration Form despite being in possession of $40,000.
He was subsequently arraigned before the Federal High Court in Kano, which on July 12, 2015, convicted him and ordered the forfeiture of 25 per cent of the undeclared foreign currency to the Federal Government.
Dissatisfied with the verdict, Aminu approached the Court of Appeal, Kaduna Division, seeking to overturn the judgment. However, in a judgment delivered on December 7, 2015, and read by Justice Habeeb Abiru, the appellate court dismissed the appeal and affirmed the decision of the trial court.
Still aggrieved, Aminu proceeded to the Supreme Court, urging it to set aside his conviction and nullify the judgments of both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal. The apex court, however, found no merit in the appeal and affirmed the concurrent findings of the two lower courts.
The case was prosecuted throughout by the EFCC’s lead counsel, Deputy Commander Sa’ad Hanafi Sa’ad, now Acting Zonal Director of the Commission’s Benin Zonal Directorate. Aminu was represented by Chief O. E. B. Offiong (SAN).
