Former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan, has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment by a Federal Capital Territory, FCT, High Court, for collecting $500,000 bribe.
The judgement was given on Tuesday.
Delivering judgment, Justice Angela Otaluka, the trial judge, ordered Lawan to restitute the $500, 000 bribe.
The EFCC charged Lawan with collecting $500,000 of a $3 million bribe he solicited from an oil tycoon, Femi Otedola, to drop his company from the investigation.
Lawan chaired the House of Representative committee that produced the fuel scam report, accusing some of those who imported fuel of massive corruption.
Born July 6, 1962, Lawan served a period of four-term in the House where he represented Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano State.
A Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, member, Lawan was voted into the House of Representatives in 1999 and chaired different committees of at different times.
One of the committees he chaired was the one on Finance.
Lawan was appointed, in January 2012, to chair the House of Representatives committee that probed government’s fuel subsidy.
The probe was instigated by the nationwide protests in the country after the then president, Goodluck Jonathan, removed fuel subsidy, a situation that led to increase in pump price.
The Lawan-led committee which probed the fuel subsidy released a report in April of 2012, which disclosed that there was a big scam in the exercise (fuel subsidy).
The report claimed that Nigerian fuel companies were paid huge amount in subsidies for fuel which they did not deliver.
The amount involved was said to be $6.8 million.
However, in February of the following year, 2013, Lawan was accused of corruption.
He was said to have collected $500,000 from oil tycoon, Femi Otedola, as part of a $3 million bribe Lawan he had requested Otedola to pay.
The bribe was said to have been demanded to save Otedola’s company, Zenon, from being probed along other oil companies.
Zenon was said in the initial report, to have owed over $1 million to the government, but later removed from the final report of the committee.
Otedola revealed that Lawan demanded the bribe so that he could have the name of his company, Zenon removed from the probe.
However, Farouk Lawan countered, claiming that he only accepted the said money so as to expose blackmail and informed the committee and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, about it.
