A former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan has been freed from prison after serving his five-year jail term for demanding and accepting a $500,000 bribe.
He disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday after he left Kuje Custodial Centre in Abuja.
According to the statement: “Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life as I step out of Kuje Custodial Centre, with a heart full of gratitude to Allah SWT for seeing me through this trial,
“My gratitude is deep, I’m alive and in good health and high spirits to be with my family, friends and associates. I don’t take that for granted.
“I remain grateful and indebted to my family and friends who stood by me through this particularly trying phase of my life.”
Lawan was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by FCT High Court for receiving a $500,000 bribe while serving as the chairman of the House’s ad-hoc committee investigating the fuel subsidy fraud in 2012.
He represented Bagwai/Shanono Federal Constituency of Kano state in the green chamber from 1999 to 2015.
In 2012, Lawan chaired the House of Representatives committee that investigated the Nigerian government’s fuel subsidies. The committee was set up in the wake of nationwide strikes in Nigeria after former President Goodluck Jonathan removed fuel subsidy.
His committee said in its report that it discovered a lot of fraudulent activities. It said a whopping $ 6.8 million was paid for petroleum products subsidy that were never delivered. Lawan got enmeshed in a bribery scandal during his committee’s investigation of companies indicted in the fuel subsidy scandal.
In 2018, businessman, Otedola, accused the former House of Representatives member of demanding a $500,000 bribe from him to remove his company, Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited from the list of oil companies allegedly involved in fuel subsidy fraud.
Lawan was seen on tape receiving $500,000 to cancel Otedola’s name from the report before presenting the report to the House. While the bribery scandal did not only dent his anti-corruption stance, it also affected his chance of returning to the green chamber in 2015.
In the course of the trial, Otedola had insisted that the operation (to give a bribe to Lawan) was done with the full knowledge of the DSS in the bid to “catch a corrupt politician in the act”.
While Lawan admitted to receiving the amount, he insisted it was meant to expose the businessman and to convince the House of the pressure its committee investigating fuel subsidy fraud, faced.
For eight years, Lawan was a regular visitor in courtrooms to prove his ‘innocence’ of the allegations leveled against him. However, the trial judge, Justice Angella Otaluka convicted Lawan on a three-count charge.
