Former Plateau State Governor, Joshua Dariye has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for corruption.
Dariye was on Tuesday sentenced to two years in prison for criminal misappropriation and 14 years for criminal breach of trust by the FCT High Court sitting in Gudu, Abuja.
During the hearing, the court ruled that all charges are to run concurrently without an option of fine.
Justice Adebukola Banjoko in a judgment which took her six and a half hours to read convicted the ex-governor on 15 out the 23 counts preferred against him.
A fortnight ago, the judge imposed 14 years’ jail term on ex-Governor of Taraba State, Jolly Nyame, on similar charges.
She sentenced Dariye to two years imprisonment on each of the five counts bordering on criminal misappropriation and 14 years’ jail term on each of the 11 counts of criminal breach of trust.
The judge, however, ruled that all the sentences would run concurrently, implying that the convict would have to spend 14 years in jail.
The punishments imposed on the ex-governor for the two categories of offences of criminal breach of trust and criminal misappropriation are the maximum as provided under sections 315 and 309 of the Penal Code Act, respectively.
The judge threw out eight of the 23 charges on the grounds of either duplicity or lack of sufficient evidence.
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s lawyer, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), had in opposing the defence lawyer’s plea for mercy, urged the court to impose the maximum sentence to serve as deterrence to others.
Dariye was also found guilty on offence bothering on criminal breach of trust, dishonesty, and diversion of funds meant for the ecological needs of Plateau state.
Dariye whose case is over 10 years was standing trial on a 23 count charge for money laundering allegedly diverting the State’s 1.126 billion Naira ecological funds.
He was arraigned by the EFCC on July 13, 2007, on allegation of money laundering and other corruption charges alleged to have belonged to the Plateau State Government.
According to the EFCC, the former governor diverted the funds into the account of Ebenezer Ratnen Venture, which is alleged to be one of the companies through which he allegedly siphoned the public funds.
Dariye served the state from 1999- 2007.
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