Nigeria’s Supreme Court has scheduled Friday for its decision on the appeal filed by Aminu Sule Lamido, the son of former Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido, following his conviction for failing to properly declare $40,000 at an international airport.
Aminu is asking the apex court to overturn earlier decisions of both the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal, which found him guilty of falsely declaring foreign currency and ordered that a portion of the undisclosed funds be forfeited.
The case stems from his arrest by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on December 11, 2012, at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, as he was about to board a flight to Cairo, Egypt.
According to the prosecution, Aminu informed officials of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) that he was carrying $10,000, but subsequent checks revealed an additional $40,000 that was not included on the currency declaration form.
He was subsequently arraigned before the Federal High Court in Kano on a single count of false declaration of foreign currency, an offence under the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act.
In a judgement delivered on July 12, 2015, the trial court found Aminu guilty and ordered him to surrender 25 per cent of the undeclared amount to the Federal Government.
Unhappy with that outcome, Aminu took the matter to the Court of Appeal sitting in Kaduna, seeking to have both the conviction and the forfeiture order overturned.
However, the appellate court, in its ruling on December 7, 2015, rejected his arguments, affirmed the trial court’s judgement, and resolved all issues against him.
Maintaining that justice had not been served, Aminu then approached the Supreme Court, urging it to set aside the decisions of the two lower courts and vacate his conviction.
The EFCC has prosecuted the matter from the trial stage through the appellate process, while Aminu has been represented by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
At the most recent hearing before the Supreme Court, counsel for both sides adopted their written submissions, after which the court reserved judgement and fixed Friday, January 16, 2026, for the delivery of its final decision.
