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The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday sentenced a former National Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Olisa Metuh, to seven years imprisonment on corruption charges regarding his activities preceding the 2015 presidential election which his party lost.
Delivering judgement at the proceedings which lasted over six hours, Justice Okon Abang convicted Metuh on all the seven counts, including the fraudulent receipt of N400 million from the Office of the National Security Adviser in November 2014 and use of same for political activities of the PDP and for his personal purposes.
The court also convicted Metuh for transacting a cash sum of $2 million without going through a financial institution.
The judge agreed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC) successfully proved that the transaction violated the anti-money laundering law which pegs the maximum cash transaction an individual can undertake outside a financial institution at N5 million.
He sentenced Metuh to seven years imprisonment for counts 1, 2, 4 and 7, five years imprisonment in respect of count 3, and three years in respect of counts 5 and 6.
He, however, ruled that the sentences shall run concurrently which implied that he would only spend the highest number of years of jail term, which is seven, in prison.
The judge also directed Metuh to pay a fine of N375 million to the Federal Government.
He also ordered his company, Destra Investments to pay N25 million to the Federal Government.
The judge ordered the accounts of Destra Investments and Asset Resource Management in Diamond Bank to be closed and their proceeds forfeited to the Federal Government.
Justice Abang further ordered the winding up of Destra Investments.