It was under same condition in the eyes of the law as the Apex Court in Nigeria affirmed the 12-year jail term handed down by the appeal court to a former Chairman of the Governing Council of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Dr. Saadu Alanamu.
Before his conviction by the lower court, Dr. Alanamu was nominated in 2017, into the Board of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) before he was dropped following allegations of corruption. He was investigated by ICPC on allegations of receiving N5milion bribe from a contractor as kickback for the award of contracts in the Polytechnic and found guilty by Justice Mahmud Abdulgafar, who sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment.
Moving against the ruling, the victim approached the Court of Appeal for redress over the judgment of the trial court, while the appellate court upheld the judgment of the lower court and dismissed Alanamu’s appeal for lack of merit, having listened to the arguments from both the prosecution and defense counsel.
The former Governing Council Chairman approached the Supreme Court on four grounds of appeal to upturn the judgments against him by the trial and appellate court.
The defence counsel, Professor Amuda Kanike, SAN, had argued at the Supreme Court that the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, under which the convict was tried had been purportedly repealed by ICPC Act, 2003. He further raised the issue of whether or not the appellant could be validly tried and convicted for different offences under different counts in the same trial based on the same set of facts.
The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision struck out all the grounds of appeals as incompetent, misconceived and lacking in merit and accordingly affirmed the conviction and sentencing of Alanamu to 12 years imprisonment based on the same previous rulling handed down to him.
