A former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi, has mocked supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for celebrating the conviction of Dr. Doyin Okupe for breaching the Money Laundering Act.
The Herald earlier reported that Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday jailed Okupe for two years, with an option of N500,000 fine on each of the 26 count charges for which he was found guilty.
While stating that the Money Laundering Act provided that no individual or organisation shall receive any sum above N5m and N10m respectively without passing through a financial institution, the judge held that, “there is no evidence that the money passed through a financial institution” and that Okupe was not a financial institution, and that, even if the president was said to have authorised the funds, he did not say that the money must be paid in cash.
Consequently, the court found Okupe guilty in counts 34, 35, 36 to 59 and set him free from counts 1 to 33 because the prosecution failed to establish the charge of money laundering and criminal breach of trust and corruption against the NSA.
Okupe is the Director-General of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council.
The news of Okupe’s conviction quickly went viral on social media, especially Twitter, where many supporters of opposition parties mocked him and the Labour Party.
Reacting, Amadi lambasted PDP supporters for joining to mock the convict, saying his “crime” was committed while he served under a PDP government.
“Doyin Okupe is trending for a ‘crime’ he committed working for a PDP presidential campaign and PDP people are spreading the news gleefully.
“Hmm irony. You are actually mocking yourself. You are endorsing Buhari’s attack against you after the 2015 election for being a corrupt party,” Amadi said.
