The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has arrested convicted fugitive former minister of power, Saleh Mamman.
EFCC chairman, Ola Olukoyede, said Mamman was arrested somewhere in Rigasa, Kaduna, on Tuesday morning at about 3 a.m.
Mamman, who has been on the run, was convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison in absentia by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday over N33.8 billion money laundering offences.
Justice James Omotosho, who convicted Mamman in all the 12 counts preferred against him by the EFCC, ordered that the sentence shall run consecutively and not concurrently.
Justice Omotosho said that the absence of the ex-minister in court on the day the judgement was delivered and on the last adjourned date was a deliberate attempt to stop the wheel of justice.
The judge, who agreed with the EFCC’s lawyer, Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, that though the defendant was not in court, the provisions of Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015, gave the court the power to proceed with the sentencing.
The judge held that Mamman could not claim to have suffered a miscarriage of justice.
The judge consequently sentenced the convict to seven years imprisonment in Counts one, two, three, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, 11 and 12 without option of fine.
Justice Omotosho also sentenced him to three year-jail term in Count 4 with an option of fine of a N10 million and two years’ imprisonment in Count 5 without option of fine.
The judge, who ordered that the sentence shall run consecutively, said it shall commence from the date of his arrest.
He, therefore, ordered all security agencies in and outside the country, including the INTERPOL, to arrest Mamman anywhere he was sighted and handed over to the Nigerian Correctional Services for his jail term.
Also based on the application by counsel for the prosecution, which was not challenged by the ex-minister’s lawyer, Mohammed Ahmed, Justice Omotosho also ordered the final forfeiture of Mamman’s two properties located in choice areas of Abuja and monies in different currencies recovered by the anti-graft agencies.
The judge further ordered that the differential amount between the monies and assets recovered from Mamman and the sum of N22 billion the prosecution was able to establish during the trial, out of the N33. 8 billion allegedly siphoned from the Zungeru and Mambilla Hydro Electric Power projects, be refunded by the convict.
Justice Omotosho had, on May 7, convicted Mamman in absentia over allegations of money laundering.
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