Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has sentenced former Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Media to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe to two years imprisonment for breaching the Money Laundering Act.
Okupe is the Director General of Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the Labour Party (LP).
Delivering her judgment on Monday, Justice Ojukwu found Okupe guilty of contravening sections 16(1)&(2) of the Money Laundering Act, for accepting cash payments without going through financial institution, in excess of the threshold allowed under the Act.
Okupe was said to have received hundreds of millions in cash from the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) while Col. Sambo Dasuki (retired) was in office.
Justice Ojukwu has stood down proceedings for Okupe’s allocutus as guaranteed under Section 310 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) to call witnesses to testify about his character, before the court could proceed to pronounce the sentence.
Delivering her sentencing, Justice Ojukwu sentenced Okupe to two years imprisonment for breaching the Money Laundering Act.
She convicted Okupe on 26 of the 59 counts preferred against him as contained in the charge on which he and two others were tried.
She sentenced him to two years per count, which are to run concurrently.
Alternatively, Justice Ojukwu gave Okupe an option of a fine of N500,000 per count, amounting to N13 million.
To lessen his punishment, the judge gave Okupe up to 4:30 pm on Monday to pay the fine, failing which he should be taken to prison.
