The Supreme Court has affirmed the conviction of Aminu Sule Lamido, son of former Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido, over his failure to declare $40,000 at an airport, dismissing his appeal against earlier judgments.
Aminu was arrested by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on December 11, 2012, at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Cairo, Egypt, after declaring $10,000 to the Nigeria Customs Service but being found with an additional undeclared $40,000.
He was subsequently charged before the Federal High Court in Kano on a one-count offence of false declaration of foreign currency contrary to the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, convicted on July 12, 2015, and ordered to forfeit 25 percent of the undeclared sum to the Federal Government.
Appeals to the Court of Appeal in Kaduna were dismissed on December 7, 2015, and in a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday, the apex court upheld the decisions of the two lower courts, bringing the legal challenge to an end.