The Supreme Court of Nigeria has upheld the conviction of Aminu Sule Lamido, son of former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, for failing to declare $40,000 in cash and making a false declaration of foreign currency while leaving the country.
Delivering a unanimous judgment on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court dismissed Aminu Lamido’s appeal, affirming the earlier decisions of the Court of Appeal in Kaduna and the Federal High Court in Kano, which had found him guilty.
The Supreme Court held that the appeal lacked merit, stating that the lower courts properly assessed the evidence presented by the prosecution and correctly applied the law in reaching their judgments.
Aminu Sule Lamido was arrested on December 11, 2012, by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Cairo, Egypt.
The prosecution stated that Aminu had declared $10,000 to officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) as required by law. Further checks, however, revealed that he was in possession of an additional $40,000, which he did not declare.
Following his arrest, the EFCC charged him before the Federal High Court in Kano on a one-count charge of false declaration of foreign currency, an offence contrary to the provisions of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act.
On July 12, 2015, the Federal High Court convicted Aminu Lamido and ordered the forfeiture of 25 percent of the undeclared sum to the Federal Government. Dissatisfied, he appealed to the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, which on December 7, 2015, dismissed his appeal and upheld the trial court’s judgment.
Still aggrieved, Aminu Lamido approached the Supreme Court seeking to nullify the judgments of the lower courts and quash his conviction. The apex court, however, dismissed his appeal, bringing the long-running legal dispute to a close.
