Seantor Peter Nwaoboshi
Barely one year after a Federal High Court in Lagos discharged and acquitted Senator Peter Nwaoboshi, representing Delta North senatorial district at the National Assembly over charges of money laundering, the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos has upturned the ruling of the lower court.
On Friday the Appellate court convicted the senator and sent him to seven years imprisonment. It also ordered that his two companies, Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd and Suiming Electrical Ltd, be wound up in line with the provisions of Section 22 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2021.
The High Court had in 2021 also discharged Nwaoboshi’s firms – Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd and Suiming Electrical Ltd – on the same ground of lack of evidence.
The defendants were arraigned in 2018 before Justice Mohammed Idris who was later elevated to the Court of Appeal. They were then re-arraigned before Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke on October 5, 2018.
In the two-count charge marked FHC/L/117C/18., the EFCC alleged that the defendants committed the offence between May and June 2014, in Lagos.
The court’s ruling followed the success of the appeal by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which had challenged the judgment of Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of a Federal High Court, Lagos, which on June 18, 2021, discharged and acquitted the defendants of a two-count charge of fraud and money laundering.
EFCC had arraigned the three defendants over the acquisition of a property named Guinea House, Marine Road, in Apapa, Lagos, for N805 million.
The anti-graft commission argued that part of the money paid to the vendor, precisely a sum of N322 million transferred by Suiming Electrical Ltd on behalf of Nwaoboshi and Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd , was alleged to be part of proceeds of fraud.
The lower court in its judgment, held that the prosecution failed to call vital witnesses and tender concrete evidence to prove the elements of the offences for which it charged the defendants.
The lower court also said the evidence of PW2 “proved that the third defendant obtained a loan of N1.2 billion from Zenith Bank for purchase of additional equipment and as provision of working capital.
“It also proved that the loan of N1.2 billion together with interest of N24 million was properly granted to the third and nothing else was proved by the complainant or prosecutor in this case,” the judge said.
The Court said that a fatal blow was dealt the case of the prosecution by its failure to call officials of Sterling Bank “to testify and probably tender exhibits F and F10.”
The lower court consequently discharged and acquitted the defendants.
However, dissatisfied the judgement, the EFCC appealed to the Court of Appeal, contending that the trial judge erred in law in dismissing the charges against the respondents.
Meanwhile, in its judgment, the Court of Appeal held that the prosecution had proved the ingredients of the offence and consequently found the defendants guilty as charged, and upturned the decision of the lower court.
