The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the conviction of Aminu Sule Lamido, son of former Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido, over his failure to properly declare foreign currency, thereby upholding the forfeiture of $40,000 to the Federal Government.
The decision was delivered by a five-member panel of the apex court led by Justice Inyang Okoro. The court dismissed Aminu Lamido’s appeal, agreeing with earlier rulings that found him guilty of making a false declaration while travelling out of the country.
The case arose from an incident on December 11, 2012, when Aminu Lamido was intercepted at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Cairo, Egypt. Although he declared $10,000 to officials of the Nigeria Customs Service, a search revealed that he was carrying a total of $50,000 in cash.
Following his arrest, he was charged before the Federal High Court in Kano on February 4, 2013, under the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act and related laws. The trial court found him guilty on July 12, 2015, and ordered that a portion of the undeclared money be forfeited to the Federal Government.
Dissatisfied with the judgment, Aminu Lamido appealed to the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, which upheld the conviction on December 7, 2015. He later approached the Supreme Court, asking it to overturn the decisions of the two lower courts.
In its final ruling, the Supreme Court held that the appeal failed on all grounds. The justices agreed that the trial court and the Court of Appeal properly examined the evidence and applied the law correctly.
With the dismissal of the appeal, the forfeiture order remains in force, bringing the long-running legal battle to an end.