Senator Peter Nwaoboshi (middle) in court
N805m fraud: APC senator returns to prison after interception by EFCC in Lagos
Senator representing Delta North in the National Assembly on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peter Nwaoboshi, was Wednesday, returned to prison custody following his inception by operatives of the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), at a Hospital in Lagos on Monday, February 6.
The APC senator who reportedly has been on the run since a Court of Appeal Lagos Division had convicted and sentenced him to 7 years imprisonment for money laundering, was remanded in Ikoyi Custodial Centre, Wednesday, to commence his prison term.
Nwaoboshi had defected to the APC in June 2021 from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Delta State, to strengthen his re-election bid in the senate.
It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal had in a judgement it delivered on July 1, 2022, sentenced him to prison after it convicted him on a two-count charge of money laundering and also ordered the winding up of his two companies, Golden Touch Construction Project Ltd and Suiming Electrical Ltd, in line with the provision of Section 22 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2021, and their properties forfeited to the Federal Government.
However, the lawmaker who was not present in court at the time of the ruling went underground and refused to present himself to the Nigerian Correctional Service.
“Instead, he proceeded to the Supreme Court, praying the apex court to not only set it aside the judgment of the appeal court but grant him bail, pending the determination of his appeal.
“But in a unanimous decision on January 27, 2023, the apex court dismissed the application. In the lead judgement by Justice Emmanuel Agim, the apex court wondered why Nwaoboshi, who refused to submit himself to the law, would seek the indulgence of the law.
“Justice Tijani Abubakar, in his contribution, upbraided 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,” an EFCC statement confirming the senator’s arrest and subsequent transmission to the Ikoyi prison read.
The Court of Appeal judgement that convicted Nwaoboshi followed an appeal by the EFCC against the judgment of Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of a Federal High Court in Lagos, which had on June 18, 2021, discharged and acquitted the lawmaker and his companies.
The senator’s arrest also halts his 2023 re-election ambitions in the Nigerian senate, a move which had prompted his earlier defection from the platform of the ruling PDP in the state, in 2021.
