Supreme court upholds 12-year jail term for former Kwara poly governing board chairman

The Supreme Court has affirmed the 12-year jail term handed down to a former Chairman of the Governing Council of the Kwara State Polytechnic, Dr. Saadu Alanamu, by the Kwara State High Court.

Dr. Alanamu, before his conviction by the lower court, 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 N5 million 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.

Dissatisfied with the ruling, Dr. Alanamu approached the Court of Appeal, urging it to quash the judgment of the trial court.

However, 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.

Still not satisfied with the ruling of the Court of Appeal, 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.

His 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that the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, under which the convict was tried had been purportedly repealed by ICPC Act, 2003.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.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court 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 fact handed down to him by the appellate and trial courts.