The embattled Labour Party chieftain was on Monday convicted of breaching the Money Laundering Act by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and was subsequently sentenced to two and a half years in prison or pay a fine of N13 million before 4:30pm yesterday. Okupe paid the fine before the deadline.
The PUNCH earlier reported that Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, the presiding judge, gave Okupe an option of N500, 000 fine on each of the 26 count charges, totalling N13,000,000 for which he was found guilty in a suit filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of which Okupe was the first defendant.
Failure to pay the fine on all the charges he was found guilty of before the deadline, would have seen Okupe sent to the Kuje Correctional Centre.
Reacting to the court fiasco in a tweet on Monday night, Okupe said he’s enemies keep failing, declaring that God is supreme over man.
He wrote, “God is not man. The enemies have tried in so many ways but keep failing…Victory is of God.”
Earlier yesterday Okupe in a tweet also said “lies, fabrication and disinformation are their tools. But in the end they will fail and be shamed. Doyin Okupe has not chopped any shishi neither has he shifted base by 1mm!!! We are moving forward till God delivers us all from perpetual raiders of this lost but glorious ark. Naija.”
The presiding judge while stating that the Money Laundering Act provided that no individual or organisation shall receive any sum above N5m and N10m respectively without passing through a financial institution, held that, “there is no evidence that the money passed through a financial institution” and that Okupe was not a financial institution, and that, even if the president was said to have authorised the funds, he did not say that the money must be paid in cash.
Consequently, the court found Okupe guilty in counts 34, 35, 36 to 59 and sets him free from counts 1 to 33 because the prosecution failed to establish the charge of money laundering and criminal breach of trust and corruption against the NSA.
In counts 34 to 59 upon which Okupe was convicted, he was accused of receiving various sums of money ranging from N10m on different occasions from 2012 to 2015 when he was Jonathan’s aide.
The said sum, he said, was spent on running his office, payment of staff members and image laundering of the former President and his administration. But, the court, however, held that receiving such amounts in cash violated the Money Laundering Act.
Furthermore The PUNCH also reported that the leadership of the Labour Party on Monday said it would first obtain a copy of the judgment of the court that convicted Okupe, who is the Director-General of Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Council and study it before taking a position on the matter.
