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,
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. The Court of Appeal Abuja Division on Wednesday jailed him six years and also asked him to refund N22.9billion.
Justice Talba had sentenced John Yusuf 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.
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. Ruling on the substantive matter, they held unanimously that the three counts involving the respondent 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.
