Abubakar Talba, a justice of the
federal capital territory high court, had in 2013 sentenced him to two years in
jail, with the option of paying a fine of N750,000.
The new sentence was handed to
him by the court of appeal on Wednesday.
The ruling by the appellate court
was the climax of the appeal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission
(EFCC) 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 June 10, 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.
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