Farouk Lawan: Lawyer speaks on dragging Femi Otedola to court

A professor of law, Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN), has stated that the Federal Government cannot drag oil magnate, Femi Otedola to court for bribery.

Farouk Lawan, the former chairman of the House of Representatives ad-hoc Committee which probed fuel subsidy, was on Tuesday sent to jail for seven years for soliciting a bribe from Otedola to remove his company, Zenon Oil and Gas Limited, from the firms under probe.

But there have been arguments on why Lawan was convicted while Otedola, who offered the bribe, was not charged.

Speaking to DailyTrust, Akinseye-George stated that it is impossible for the federal government to charge Otedola.

According to the senior advocate of Nigeria, he (Otedola) does not have a “guilty intent”.

“The giver does not have what in law we call ‘guilty intent’. He knew he was not supposed to give a bribe and then informed the law enforcement agency to make them part of the process; so, he doesn’t have the guilty intent and without this intent, the law does not punish,” he said.

Akinseye-George explained that for an offence of bribery to be committed, there must be two elements which are the mental and physical elements.

“The mental element of the offence is the state of the mind of the giver at the time he gave. In this case, you don’t have the corrupt mental element.

“All you have is the physical element, which was with the knowledge of law enforcement agents.

“That is why in this case, you cannot talk about punishing the giver because the state of mind of the giver was not to corrupt but to expose corruption,” he added.