The former governor and his sons are facing money laundering charges brought to the court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Sule Lamido, and his two sons, Aminu and Mustapha
The Lamidos were secretly moved to Abuja’s Kuje prison as they awaited a court hearing today, with a new judge who was assigned to consider the bail application.
The Judge, Gabriel Kolawole granted the accused, Mr Lamido and son alongside another individual, Abubakar Wada, bail in the sum of N25 million bail bond each, in addition to a requirement that they submit their travel passport to the court.
The court also asked the accused to produce two sureties each, one of which must be a civil servant of grade level 16 or retired as such, or a businessman who owns a landed property not worth less that N75 million in Abuja or Jigawa state. The accused was also required to submit two recent passport pictures.
Kolawole said EFCC’s argument that the accused persons were earlier allowed administrative bail by the commission based on the fact that they were unaware of the enormity of evidences gathered by the commission, was weak.
He said that EFCC must explain why the court could not exercise its discretion in favour of an accused person in this case.
The EFCC’s counsel had earlier signaled that their pool of evidence was so strong that the accused might jump bail.
As of now, the accused are yet to be released from prison as they have not met their bail conditions.
The EFCC are accusing Lamido, his sons and Mr. Abubakar of using their positions to steal Jigawa state funds.
One of the reported cases was the alleged payment by construction firm, Dantata and Sawoe, who paid N1.3 billion as 10 percent kickback for contracts it won, into accounts owned by the governor and his sons.