The Director General of the campaign council of the Labour Party (LP), Dr. Doyin Okupe has been sentenced to two years imprisonment by a high court sitting in Abuja, for breaching the money laundering act.
In a judgment delivered on Monday, Okupe was found guilty of 26 out of a 59-count charge preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The presiding judge, Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu, sentenced Okupe to two years in prison on each of the counts.
The sentence however is run concurrently.
The judge gave the convict an option of to pay a N500,000 fine on each of the counts, amounting to N13 million.
The EFCC had in 2019, arraigned Okupe, on a 59-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering and diversion of funds to the tune of N702 million.
He was arraigned alongside two companies – Value Trust Investment Ltd and Abrahams Telecoms Ltd.
Okupe was said to have received cash from the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) while Sambo Dasuki, the NSA at the time, was in office.
The court found Okupe guilty of contravening sections 16(1)&(2) of the Money Laundering Act by accepting cash payments in excess of the threshold allowed under the Act, without going through a financial institution.
The judge said the NSA is not a financial institution and although the former president allegedly authorised the funds, he did not specify a cash payment in violation of the Money Laundering Act.
“I find the first defendant, Dr. Doyin Okupe, guilty on counts 34, 35, 36, to 59,” the court ruled.
The judge, however, found the defendants not guilty on counts one to 33 on the grounds that the prosecution failed to establish the charge of money laundering, criminal breach of trust, and corruption against the NSA.
