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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.
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.
In a related development, the Supreme Court on March 9 dismissed
the appeal by Onyia Ifeanyi, seeking to upturn his conviction and
sentence to 7 years imprisonment on November 28, 2013 by the
Federal High Court Enugu presided over by Justice M.L. Shuaibu ( as
he then was) for the offence of obtaining by false pretence and
being in possession of documents containing false pretence.
Dissatisfied with his conviction, the appellant had lodged an
appeal against it at the Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal,
which 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
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