Breaking News: Farouk Lawan, a former federal lawmaker, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for accepting a $3 million bribe.

On bribery allegations presented by the Nigerian government, Farouk Lawan, former chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee on Fuel Subsidy of the House of Representatives, was sentenced to seven years in jail by an Abuja High Court on March 31.

During his tenure as Chairman of the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee, Lawan played an important role in the investigation of the multi-billion naira gasoline subsidy fraud that occurred in 2012.

Farouk Lawan is being held in the dock.

A payment of $500,000 from Femi Otedola, according to accusations and video evidence, was paid to him in 2012 to have Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited (Otedola’s firm) removed off a list of oil companies allegedly implicated in the fuel subsidy scheme.

On seven charges of bribery, Lawan was indicted by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), where he was claimed to have taken an amount of $500,000 from Otedola.

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Following that, the charge was reduced to three counts.

While testifying as the fifth prosecution witness, Otedola stated that the defendant had demanded $3 million and threatened to prosecute his oil firm unless he paid up.

According to the businessman, he reported the incident to the Department of State Services (DSS) and was awarded $500,000 in marked notes as a result of his reporting.

The DSS, he claimed, had installed a camera in his home in order to capture Lawan red-handed.