Oscarline Onwuemenyi
08 April 2017, Sweetcrude, Abuja – A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Gudu, Abuja, on Friday sentenced, an earlier convicted oil marketer, Mr. Jubril Rowaye, to fresh 10 years imprisonment for fraud involving about N1.05bn perpetrated under the Petroleum Subsidy Fund scheme.
Justice Adebukola Banjoko in a judgment which lasted about five hours and thirty minutes on Friday convicted Rowaye along with his company, Brilla Energy Limited, and another firm, Alminnur Resources Limited, to which the permit to import 10,000metric tons of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) into Nigeria was issued in 2011.
The original first defendant, Alhaji Saminu Rabiu, who is the Director of Alminnur Resources Limited, had died after the prosecution closed its case with 12 witnesses, and the charges were later amended to delete his name as a defendant.
The rest of the three defendants were subsequently re-arraigned on February 12, 2016.
Meanwhile, a High Court of Lagos State, in Ikeja had on March 16, 2017, convicted Jubril, and his company, Brilla Energy Limited, of a fuel subsidy scam of N963.7m.
Justice Lateefa Okunnu of the Lagos State court had in her judgment sentenced Jubril to a jail term of 10 years for the fraud.
On Friday, Justice Banjoko of the FCT High Court, sentenced Rowaye, who was flown by prison authorities from Kirikiri Prison in Lagos to Kuje Prison in Abuja, of 14 out of 17 counts preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
