A Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Gudu, Abuja, has sentenced a former governor of Taraba State, Rev Jolly Nyame, to 14 years imprisonment for criminal breach of trust and misappropriating the sum of N1.64billion.
The former governor was jailed without any option of fine after being found guilty of the charges preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Justice Adebukola Banjoko found Nyame guilty of 27 out of the 41 counts preferred against him.
He was convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment with the highest being 14 years for offences bearing on criminal breach of trust, criminal misappropriation, taking valuable things without consideration and receiving gratification as a public officer.
The sentences are, however, to run concurrently.
Justice Banjoko, who read the judgment for a period of about four hours spanning from 9.51am to about 2.05pm on Wednesday, sentenced the former governor to the maximum punishment of 14 years for criminal breach of trust, without an option of fine.
She sentenced Nyame to the maximum sentence of two years for misappropriation, seven years for receiving gratification and five years for “obtaining valuable thing without consideration”.
The sentences were the maximum provided by the laws under which he was charged in May 2007.
While dismissing Nyame’s lawyer’s plea for mercy had described the act of the convict as likely be the most “audacious” by any chief executive of a state.
