By Tife Owolabi
YENAGOA, Nigeria, May 19 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s anti-graft agency has arrested former power minister Saleh Mamman, days after a court sentenced him in absentia to 75 years in prison for laundering 33.8 billion naira ($24.65 million), its chairman said on Tuesday.
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission chief Ola Olukoyede said that Mamman, who had been in hiding since his May 7 conviction, was arrested in the northern city of Kaduna in the middle of the night and is now in custody.
The arrest marks a rare follow-through in Nigeria’s fight against high-level corruption, where convictions of senior officials are uncommon and enforcement is often slow.
Olukoyede said Mamman had been “protected” while on the run and that two other suspects were arrested for harbouring him. Authorities are also investigating the property where he was found.
On May 7, a Nigerian court convicted Mamman on all 12 counts of corruption and money laundering involving funds tied to two government-backed hydroelectric projects. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on each of 10 counts, and to three and two years on two counts, to run consecutively.
($1 = 1,371.0300 naira)
(Reporting by Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa, Writing by Elisha Bala-Gbogbo, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
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