The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the judgement of the Appeal Court against former Governor Jolly Nyame of Taraba state. The court had found him guilty of corruption charges and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. Vigil360 recalls that the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) had charged Jolly Nyame with abuse of office while serving as Governor of Taraba state.
After about 11 years of protracted trial, Justice Adebukola Banjoko, Judge of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja found Nyame guilty of charges pressed against him and awarded him a 14yrs jail term on May 30th, 2018.
The EFCC had specifically accused Nyame of diverting N1.64 billion between 1999 and 2007.
Nyame through his council appealed the judgement and the jail term was reviewed to 12 years by an Appeal Court.
Dissatisfied with the reduction of his jail term by only two years, Nyame approached the apex court hoping to be acquitted. He was however disappointed as the court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal.
The former governor had challenged the jurisdiction of the lower court to handle his case, adding that the jail term slammed on him as much. He also demanded that the N100 millions fine levelled on him should be squashed.
While delivering judgement on Friday, Justice Amina Augie, the presiding Judge dismissed the issue of jurisdiction saying that the trial court did not err in its execution.
She, however, held that the court of appeal shouldn’t have imposed the fine on the accused since the issue of fine was never raised as a point in any case.
Meanwhile, she upheld the position of the appeal Court saying it not possible to further reduce the sentence after the appeal court decision, stressing that the appeal court was magnanimous enough to have awarded only 12yrs since the offender was a first timer.