FRIDAY OLOKOR writes on the recent travails of former Labour Party’s Presidential Campaign Director-General, Dr Doyin Okupe, who resigned following a money-laundering conviction
In Literature, heroes, most times, end in tragedy, due to their flaws.
As the central character in the classical sense, the hero engages in dangerous adventures or wars, feats and exploits of unparalleled courage and bravery. He possesses extraordinary mental faculties and physical abilities.
The recent money laundering case and conviction of Dr Doyin Okupe, a former Special Assistant (Media and Publicity) to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who, on Monday, December 19, 2022, opened a fresh chapter in the bad columns of the press.
Following his conviction, albeit with an option of a fine over money laundering charges, Okupe, who was the Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, was found guilty of receiving over N200 million in cash from a former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), and therefore, sentenced to two years imprisonment by Justice Ijeoma Ojuwku of a Federal High Court in Abuja with an option of a N500, 000 fine on each of the 26 counts for which he was found guilty.
He had resigned as DG of the LP-PCC, however, due to concerns that it would harm the chances of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi.
Delivering her judgment, the Judge held that Okupe, who is the first defendant in the suit filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for violating the Money Laundering Act, had until 4.30 pm that day to pay the fine option, totalling N13 million on all the charges for which he was found guilty, or be sent to the Kuje Correctional Centre. But he paid the money that evening and escaped imprisonment.
In sentencing Okupe, Justice Ojukwu considered the pleadings for leniency from the wife of the convict, Omolola Okupe, and those of his son, Adesunkanmi Okupe, as well as the alocutus from his counsel.
According to the judge, the Money Laundering Act provides that no individual or organisation shall receive any sum above N5 million and N10 million, respectively, without passing through a financial institution.
For Okupe, the judge held that “there is no evidence that the money passed through a financial institution.”
How it all began
Okupe, then a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, was arrested by the EFCC on December 12, 2018, but released on administrative bail. He was later rearrested on January 11, 2019. The commission then explained that Okupe was being charged with 59 counts of corruption and would be arraigned before Justice Ojukwu.
The prosecution counsel, Ibrahim Audu, had presented his sixth and last witness, Shuaibu Salisu, a former Director, Administration and Finance in the Office of the National Security Adviser, who works with the National Intelligence Agency.
Salisu told the court that “sometime in 2012, Okupe came to the Office of the NSA, and after their discussion, I was directed to make a payment of N50 million to him.”
After some months of serious legal fireworks, the EFCC closed the criminal case against Okupe, who was charged with laundering N702 million, in 2019. When the case recently came up again on December 19, 2022, any soothsayer who would have predicted the conviction of Okupe would have been branded a fake prophet as neither he nor his disciples had a premonition of what was coming.
The judge said he was not a financial institution, and that, even if then President Jonathan was said to have authorised the funds, he did not say that the money must be paid in cash in violation of the Money Laundering Act.
As a result, the court found the former SSA guilty in counts 34, 35, 36, and 59 but found him not guilty in counts 1–33 because the prosecution failed to prove the charge of money laundering, 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 N10 million on different occasions from 2012 to 2015, when he was SSA to President Jonathan. The said sums, according to him, were expended on running the office, paying staff, and laundering the image of the former president and his administration.
However, the court ruled that receiving such sums in cash violated the Money Laundering Act.
Shortly after his conviction, Okupe’s counsel, Francis Oronsaye, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy, citing the defendant’s status as a first-time offender and a family man who is also advanced in age and has health issues that he is currently treating in Nigeria and outside the country.
Oronsaye, citing Section 310 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, urged the court to stay the proceedings so that he could call witnesses to attest to Okupe’s good character, which the court granted. This is in addition to Okupe’s wife and son’s pleas for mercy.
Divided opinions
Since his conviction, opinions have, however, been divided. According to some analysts, the conviction is a dangerous signal that those who are desperate to form the next government in 2023 are also found to be violating existing laws governing monetary policy.
So, if before they get to power, they are violating guidelines on monetary policies, it is most likely that they will be reckless if they win the election and the implementation of financial and monetary policies are handed over to them to manage.
While some believed that Okupe was a victim of politics, others said he deserved to face the music in line with the determination of the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to fight corruption to a standstill in what should be a battle of no retreat, no surrender. Others said Okupe’s conviction means that nobody is above the law.
‘Okupe not a thief’
However, the Peter Obi Support Network exonerated him, saying, “Okupe is not a thief.”
The spokesperson of POSN, Onwuasoanya Jones, said the conviction had provided the paid and unpaid mouthpieces of some of Nigeria’s most devious criminals and corrupt politicians, currently angling for Nigeria’s top job, a new opportunity to try dismantling Peter Obi’s ironclad reputation as one of Nigeria’s most credible, honest, and incorruptible politicians.
He said, “Doyin Okupe’s offence was not that he diverted funds meant for any project or that he stole money given to him to carry out any assignment for the Federal Government. He was convicted of the same crime that almost every businessman in Nigeria commits every day. Whoever carries out a transaction that is above N150,000 in cash is guilty of money laundering because, under the CBN’s cashless policy, which was introduced by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as CBN governor, you shouldn’t have to carry any money that is more than N150,000. But we all do that all the time.
“That’s the exact reason Doyin was convicted. His offence was collecting more than the specified amount of money in cash instead of having it pass through the banks. As a result, I disagree with those who portray Doyin as a common thief or a corrupt politician. As far as this particular conviction is concerned, Doyin is merely an offender and not a criminal. He is just like someone who violated traffic lights and was fined for that.”
A similar view was shared by the Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, Debo Adeniran, who believed that Doyin Okupe was not actually convicted for fraud but money laundering as he accepted more than the threshold of money that should be accepted in cash without passing through financial institutions. He did, however, admit that Okupe’s offence “is an act of dishonesty, because there has been a law, a policy, that certain amounts of money should not be taken in cash, and he violated that law.”
‘Dishonest and corrupt’
Adeniran added, “It is an act of dishonesty, which is corruption. But it is not so much grand corruption or what you call wholesale corruption. So basically, it may not affect the chances of his principal (Peter Obi) so significantly.”
But Kunle Adegoke (SAN) shares a slightly different view on the matter, saying the punishment was not as mild as some critics believed. When you look at this case, I think the offence of money laundering does not mean that the person stole the money. The money may be given to an individual but the means of carriage violate the provisions of the law by which punishment is being exerted.
“So I believe that the punishment is sufficient and that it’s meant to deter others. And the fact that such a public figure is being sentenced on conviction speaks volumes about his character and integrity. The implication is that he has become an ex-convict since the time of his conviction sentence, to whom certain legal rights are denied. So, I believe that it is sufficient in this circumstance,” he said.
For the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress in the 2019 election, Omoyele Sowore, Nigerians were the most cheated by the punishment handed down by the court on Okupe, as he would have been made to refund the amount with interest.
Mild, insufficient punishment
He said, “He (Okupe) should have been made to refund that amount plus the bank interest rate since the time the money was traced to his account. He didn’t get proper justice (conviction). They were accusing him of being in possession of an amount of money greater than what is allowed. They did not directly accuse him of money laundering.
“I guess he must have made some arrangements because you could see that he was confident during the first session of the trial when he was convicted but had not been sentenced.
“He was saying everybody should calm down, so when the sentence came for him to go and pay N13 million or go to two years in jail, before 4.20 pm, he had already paid the money, and nobody is asking even within the media where he got the money from. I hope it’s not the contribution of members of the Labour Party because that will be another crime of money laundering because I don’t know that Doyin Okupe has a real job.”
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