Court of Appeal reduces ex-governor Joshua Dariyes jail term
News & Trends •
the three-man panel comprising of justices abdul aboki stephen adah and atinuke komolafe-wilson which sat on the dariye appeal gave its verdict on november 16 20181 the court of appeal in abuja has reduced the 14-year jail term of former plateau governor joshua dariye1 the appeal court also reduced the 14 year jail term of former governor jolly nyame of taraba state to 12 years1 both governors got the reprieve on account of being first time offenders1 justice banjoko had on may 30 2018 found nyame a former taraba state governor guilty and sentenced him to 14 years for criminal breach of trust two for criminal misappropriation seven for gratification and five for obtaining by dishonesty to run concurrently1 the trial judge on june 12 2018 also found dariye a former plateau state governor guilty of 15 out of the 23-count amended charge brought against him by the efcc bordering on criminal breach of trust and misappropriation of public funds and sentenced him to 14 years in prison for criminal breach of trust and two years for misappropriation of public funds to run concurrently1 the two former governors who are currently serving their jail terms at kuje prison had approached the court of appeal seeking to have their convictions and sentencing set aside1 he will now spend 10 years according to the judgement delivered on friday1 reading the lead judgement on behalf of the panel adah stressed that it was a unanimous decision. the panel upheld the conviction of dariye based on counts one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 11 13 17 21 and 221 adah however stressed that the lower court ought to have given consideration to the fact that dariye was a first-time offender and also set aside his conviction based on count 12 while quashing his conviction based on count 231 in view of being a first-time offender their lordship reduced his sentencing of 14 years for criminal breach of trust to 10 years on each count reduced his two years sentence to one for misappropriation of funds all to run concurrently1 the forfeiture order of the lower court is also upheld justice adah added1 meanwhile nyame was not so lucky as the panel that sat on his appeal comprising of justices aboki and emmanuel agim not only upheld his conviction but also fined him n495 million1 reducing the sentencing of the lower court in conformity with section 315 of the penal code and section 416 of the acja 2015 justice agim who read the judgement commuted nyames jail term to 12 years and fined him n100 million each on counts one two and six n50 million on count eight n20 million on counts 10 12 and 14 n10 million on counts 16 18 20 27 29 30 31 and 32 and n5 million on count 36 totalling n495 million1 nyame also had his sentence reduced from 14 years to 12 for criminal breach of trust from seven years to five years for gratification and five years to four for obtaining by dishonesty1