BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – A Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court sitting in Gudu District, Abuja on Tuesday, June 12, 2018 slammed a 14-year jail term on former Plateau State governor, Senator Joshua Dariye for fraud.
Dariye, was found guilty of 15 out of 23-count charge by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He was charged to court in 2017 by the anti-graft agency for the alleged offence.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Adebukola Banjoko found him guilty of breach of trust in count 1 of misappropriating N1.16 billion Ecological Fund meant for the state, count 2 (N160m), count 7 (N16.8m) and count 4 for the N250 million issued to Pinnacle Communications emanating from the state’s Ecological Fund.
The EFCC had accused the former governor of diverting N1.16 billion into the account of Ebenezer Ratnen Venture, alleged to be one of the companies through which he purportedly siphoned the public funds into private pockets.
Justice Banjoko said the former governor was, indeed, richer than his state, and “there should be no compromise to corruption by whatever shade or colour, rich or poor”.
After reading through the judgment, Justice Banjoko gave the lawyers room to speak for their clients.
Dariye’s lawyer, Paul Erokoro, asked the court to consider the fact that his client “was ignorant of the offence” at the time it was committed.
Dariye is a serving senator representing Plateau Central on the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) platform. He was elected Senator under the aegis of the Labour Party in April 2011 and decamped to the APC in 2016.
As a two-term Plateau State Governor under the auspices of the PDP from 1999, he was impeached by the state’s House of Assembly in November 2006.
The impeachment was however declared a nullity by the Appeal Court in March 2007 while the Supreme Court upheld the judgment in April 2007 and that effectively returned the then embattled Dariye to office for the rest of his tenure.
