The Supreme Court has affirmed the five-year jail term handed to a former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Lawan by the Court of Appeal.

Recall that Lawan was convicted and sentenced to prison in 2021 for accepting a $500,000 bribe from businessman Femi Otedola, Chairman, Zenon Petroleum and Gas Ltd.

A Federal Capital Territory High Court had sentenced Lawan to seven years imprisonment for receiving the $500,000 bribe while serving as the chairman of the House’s ad-hoc committee investigating the fuel subsidy fraud in 2012.

The trial judge, Angela Otaluka, held that Lawan demanded $3m and received $500,000 from Femi Otedola in 2012 to remove Otedola’s oil company, Zenon Oil and Gas, from the list of firms indicted for fraud in the fuel subsidy regime.

She also held that Lawan was guilty of all three counts of corruption and bribery.

Lawan, however, approached the appellate court where his jail term was reduced from seven to five years.

In a unanimous decision on Friday, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court agreed with the 2022 judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had affirmed Lawan’s five-year sentence on count three of the three counts brought against him at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

In the lead judgment prepared by Justice John Okoro, but read on Friday by Justice Tijjani Abubakar, the apex count found that Lawan’s appeal was without merit and proceeded to dismiss it.