*Winds Up His Firm, Dextra Investment
Former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Olisa Metuh has been convicted and sentenced to seven-year jail term by a Federal High Court in Abuja on charges of money laundering and fraud. His company, Dextra Investment, arraigned along with him has also been ordered to be wound up.
Handing down the sentence in a judgment that lasted over six hours, Justice Okon Abang convicted the two defendants on all the seven counts, including the fraudulent receipt of N400 million from the Office of the National Security Adviser in November 2014 and use of the money for political activities of the PDP and for his personal purposes.
Metuh was also convicted for transacting with a cash sum of $2 million without going through any financial institution.
The presiding judge, Justice Abang, held that the prosecution successfully proved beyond reasonable doubt that the transaction violated the anti-money laundering law, which pegs the maximum cash transaction an individual could undertake outside a financial institution at N5 million.
Justice Abang thereafter sentenced Metuh to seven-year imprisonment on counts one, two, four and seven; while he handed him five-year jail term on count three; and three-year imprisonment on counts five and six respectively
While directing that the sentences are to run concurrently, Justice Abang ordered the winding up of Dextra Investment and also ordered Metuh to pay a fine of N375 million to the Federal Government.
Dextra Investments was equally ordered to pay N25 million to the Federal Government. The judge further ordered that the accounts of Dextra in Diamond Bank and Asset Resource Management be closed and their proceeds forfeited to the Federal Government.
