Peter Nwaoboshi, the Senator representing Delta North in the National Assembly, has been apprehended after being on the run for months after the Court of Appeal Lagos Division convicted and sentenced him to seven years in prison for money laundering.
According to a statement issued by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Head of Media and Publicity, Wilson Uwujaren, the lawmaker was apprehended by EFCC operatives at a hospital in Lagos on Monday and remanded in Ikoyi Custodial Centre on Wednesday to begin his prison term.
The Court of Appeal sentenced him to prison in a judgment delivered on July 1, 2022, after convicting him on a two-count charge of money laundering.
It also ordered the liquidation of his two companies, Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd and Suiming Electrical Ltd, in accordance with Section 22 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2021, and the forfeiture of their assets to the Federal Government.
However, the lawmaker, who was not in court at the time of the ruling, went underground and refused to appear before the Nigerian Correctional Service.
He then petitioned the Supreme Court, requesting that it not only set aside the appeal court’s decision, but also grant him bail pending the outcome of his appeal.
However, on January 27, 2023, the Supreme Court dismissed the application unanimously. In the lead decision, Justice Emmanuel Agim questioned why Nwaoboshi, who had refused to submit to the law, would seek its indulgence.
In his contribution, Justice Tijani Abubakar chastised the Appellant for filing the bail application while on the run.
“We must make it very, very clear to all Nigerians that nobody is above the law. The government and the governed are subject to the rule of law. And, we must ensure that there is respect for the rule of law,” he said.
The Court of Appeal decision convicting Nwaoboshi came after the EFCC filed an appeal against the judgment of Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of a Federal High Court in Lagos, which had discharged and acquitted the lawmaker and his companies on June 18, 2021.
Nwaoboshi and his companies unlawfully purchased Guinea House, Marine Road, Apapa, Lagos, for N805 million. Suiming Electrical Ltd transferred a portion of the money paid for the property on behalf of Nwaoboshi and Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd. The funds are thought to be the proceeds of the convict’s illegal activities.
One of the counts reads: “That you, Peter Nwaoboshi and Golden Touch Construction Projects Limited, between May and June, 2014, within the jurisdiction of this honourable court, did acquire a property described as Guinea House, Marina Road, Apapa, Lagos, for the sum of N805million, when you reasonably ought to have known that the sum of N322 million out of the purchase price transferred to the vendors by order of Suinming Electricals Limited formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity of fraud and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15(2) (d) of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act of 2011(as amended) and punishable under Section (15)(3) of the same Act.”
