Former Imo State Transportation Commissioner Laz Anyanwu was charged with three years in prison on Tuesday.
Anyanwo, who worked under former governor Rochas Okorocha, was convicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission after he pleaded guilty to charges leveled against him.
According to Within Nigeria, the former commissioner was sentenced by Judge K.A Levania, who said the jail term would run consecutively.
According to the judge, the defendant was found guilty of fraud, theft and theft of public money.
The justice said the former commissioner was found guilty of diverting N180 million of state funds into a private company account where he was a major shareholder and sole signatory when he was a commissioner and doubled as the Commissioner for Transport and the interim committee of Imo State Transport. company, ITC, which contravenes Sections 12 and 19 of the ICPC Act, 2020.
The judge claimed that Anyanwu violated the Public Procurement Act, misused his office and used his office to gain undue advantage in his activities while he was the transport commissioner and chairman of the temporary committee of the Imo state transport company, ITC.
The judge said that the EFCC attorney, Michael Ani, was able to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that when Anyanwu was commissioner in charge of transport from 2015 to 2019, he transferred an amount of N100 million from the account.
ITC account for his private company called Oma Oil Industries Limited, contrary to sections 12 and 19 of the ICPC Act 2020 for public servants.
The judge also said that the former commissioner signed another N80 million from the government coffers directly to his private company account on the grounds that he wanted to procure some vehicles for ITC without due process and without recourse to public procurement law.
The judge, while sentencing him to prison, said the former commissioner looted the sum of N180 million found in his account said to be for the state transport company.
