In its brief of argument filed on September 17, 2013, the EFCC asked the appeal court to determine, “whether the trial judge exercised his discretion judicially and judiciously when having convicted the respondent of a three count charge of conversion of over N3 billion contrary to section 309 of the Penal Code, His Lordship imposed two years imprisonment with an option of fine of N250, 000 on each of the three counts.”

Mr. Yusuf, however, argued that the notice of appeal was filed outside the mandatory 90 days and was therefore in contravention of Section 24 (2)(b) of the Court of Appeal Act 2010. He therefore asked the court to dismiss the appeal.

However, the appeal court judges, in a unanimous decision dismissed his objection and ruled that “Having considered the computation of time volunteered by both parties, the question to be answered was whether the day the judgment of the trial court was delivered was to be inclusive in the computation of the mandatory 90 days for which a notice of appeal was to be filed?


“That the day the judgment of the trial court was delivered being the 28th January, 2013, was not to be included in the computation of the 90 days.

“That since the day of the Judgment is not included, the 90 days starts running from the 29th January, 2013 and the 90th day will fall on a Sunday.

“That by virtue of s. 15(2) of the Interpretation Act CAP 123, where the last day is a holiday, the counting shall continue until the end of the next following day which is not a holiday.

“That since the 90th day was a Sunday and by virtue of s. 15 (5) of Interpretation Act, a Sunday is a holiday, the next day which the notice of appeal was filed is within time, hence the appeal is competent and is therefore allowed”.

The judges were also unanimous in their ruling that the sentence of the high court does not serve as serve as deterrence to both the convict and others and consequently ordered that the sentence should be quashed and reviewed.


On Counts 17, the respondent was sentenced to two years imprisonment with a fine of N20 billion. On Counts 18, he was similarly sentenced to two years imprisonment with a fine of N1.4billion Naira; and on counts 19, he was sentenced to two years imprisonment with a fine of 1.5billion Naira”.

The sentence of imprisonment is to run consecutively, and the fine is to be cumulative, the court ruled.

An Elaborate Scam

The pension scam involved several billions of naira stolen from retired police officers. Mr. Yakubu and his colleagues were suspended indefinitely in 2012 after the scandal broke.

The EFCC said the complex scheme involved several transfers of huge sums between banks and use of illegal accounts and falsification of names; which were said to have been conducted between the officials and a former Director of Police Pension Fund, Esai Dangabar.

Mr. Dangabar was charged. He later told the EFCC part of the money was shared among the officials and the pension committees of the senate and the House of Representatives.

The National Assembly at the time denied the allegations, calling it a “pack of lies” asking him to provide proof that he shared the money with its members.