The Supreme Court will on Friday (tomorrow), deliver its judgement in the appeal filed by Aminu Sule Lamido, the 34-year- old son of the former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, following his conviction on undeclared $40,000 cash at the airport and false declaration of foreign currency charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
The operatives of the EFCC had on December 11, 2012, arrested Aminu Sule Lamido at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport on his way to Egypt for failure to declare the sum of $40,000 cash in the Customs Currency Declaration Form after initially declaring the statutory $10,000 cash to the Nigeria Custom Service (NCS).
Aminu, a 2010 graduate of Mass a Communication from the Bayero University Kano, was subsequently arraigned by the EFCC on February 4, 2013, on one count charge of false declaration of foreign currency under the Money Laundering Act.
The charge reads: “That you, Aminu Sule Lamido, on or about 11th day of December, 2012 at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano within the Jurisdiction of the Federal High Court while transporting in cash, the sum of $50,000 (fifty thousand dollars only) from Nigeria to Cairo, Egypt, falsely declare to the Nigeria Customs Service the sum of $10,000 (Ten Thousand dollars only) instead of the said sum of $50,000(fifty thousand dollars only) as required under Section 12 of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act Cap F34 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 and Section 2(3) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 2(5) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011”.
The EFCC subsequently arraigned Aminu Sule Lamido before the Federal High Court in Kano while the court convicted him on July 12, 2015 and ordered him to forfeit 25 per cent of the undeclared foreign currency to the Federal Government..
Dissatisfied with the judgment of the trial court, Aminu filed an appeal before the Court of Appeal, in Kaduna, asking the appellate court to set aside the judgment of the lower court.
But the appellate court in its judgment delivered on Monday, December 7, 2015 and read by a Justice of the Court of Appeal (JCA), Justice Habeeb Abiru, dismissed the appeal by Aminu and upheld the decision of the lower court while resolving all the issues raised against Aminu (the appellant).
Further dissatisfied, Aminu approached the Supreme Court, asking the apex court to set aside his conviction and nullify the judgments of the Federal High Court and that of the Court of Appeal.
It is instructive to note that the lead prosecuting EFCC lawyer, DCE Sa’ad Hanafi, now Acting Zonal Director of Benin Directorate of the Commission, handled the case all through from the Fed High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court while Chief O E B Offiong (SAN) represented Aminu during the proceedings.
At the last adjourned date of the matter before the Supreme Court, parties adopted their briefs of arguments while the apex court reserved its judgment and consequently fixed Friday, January 16, 2026 for its judgment on the appeal.