Court acquits former NNPC GMD, Andrew Yakubu, over stashed $9.8 million cash

Andrew Yakubu, a former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), was dismissed and acquitted of fraud charges by the Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday. The case included $9.8 million confiscated from his house in 2017.

In 2017, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) raided Mr Yakubu’s home in the Sabon Tasha region of Kaduna State on a tip-off and discovered $9,772, 800 and £74,000 in a safe.

On March 16, 2017, the commission charged him with six counts of money laundering and other offenses before Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

However, the Court of Appeal dismissed the accusations against counts 3 and 4, which are related to money laundering, based on a no-case plea submitted by the former NNPC head.

Judgement

The prosecution failed to demonstrate the requisite elements of the accusations to support Mr Yakubu’s conviction, according to the court’s ruling on Thursday.

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The court stated, “The defendant’s (Mr Yakubu) evidence was not only trustworthy but also dependable,” adding, “The prosecution failed to challenge the evidence as required by law.”

Mr Mohammed argued that the EFCC should have looked into Mr Yakubu’s assertions that the monetary gifts he claimed to have received originated from his friends, but “sadly for reasons best known to it, the prosecution did not do so,” the judge added.

“To make matters worse, the prosecution presumed the money was taken in one fell swoop, despite the defendant’s testimony that he received the money piecemeal as gifts from his friends after he resigned from the military in 2014.”

“It was a tremendous mistake on the prosecution’s part not to tender the money as an exhibit during the trial, instead making useless efforts after it had concluded its case,” the judge said.

“Overall, Mr Yakubu’s testimony casts serious doubt on the EFCC’s, and that doubt must be resolved in his favor,” Mr Mohammed concluded.

The judge agreed with Mr Yakubu’s defense that the money were received as gifts in their whole rather than as a “whole” that may have violated the 2011 Money Laundering Prohibition Act.

Because the monies did not pass via a financial institution, Mr Mohammed invalidated the EFCC’s claim that they were proceeds of crime.

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As a consequence, the judge ordered Mr Yakubu’s confiscated funds of $9,772, 800 and £74, 000 to be returned to him immediately.

Backstory

Mr Yakubu was charged with six counts of money laundering and other offenses by the EFCC on March 16, 2017.

The prosecution finished its case on October 17, 2018, after summoning Suleiman Mohammed, a commission operative, as its seventh prosecution witness.

Two of the counts were dismissed by the trial court on May 16, 2019. Mr Yakubu had taken his case to the Court of Appeal after being dissatisfied with the court’s rejection to dismiss all of the counts.

On April 24, 2020, the Court of Appeal in Abuja handed down its decision on the appeal, dismissing two further charges and ordering the defendant to defend just Counts 3 and 4.

The two counts related to the defendant’s failure to make a complete asset disclosure to the EFCC following his arrest, as well as receiving cash without going through a financial institution, in violation of Section 1(1) of the Money Laundering Act, 2011, which is punishable under Section 16(2)(b) of the Act.
Following the Court of Appeal’s judgment, the EFCC filed a motion to alter the charges pending in the Federal High Court on March 10, 2021.

The Federal High Court, however, refused the request for a charge change on June 17, 2021, stating that granting the motion would be a violation of the Court of Appeal’s judgment, which had defined the counts on which the defendant should be prosecuted.

Mr Yakubu, who was appearing as a defense witness in the case, refuted the claims in his evidence. He stated that the money confiscated from him was a collection of presents he received after leaving government at various periods.

On Thursday, the trial court acquitted Mr Yakubu of the two remaining accusations.