Return to Tribunal and face re-trial, Appeal Court orders Saraki

The travails of Senate President Bukola Saraki, over charges of false asset declaration, may not be over as the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, ordered the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) to do a retrial of three out of eighteen-count amended criminal charges brought by the Federal Government.

The three-man panel of the Appeal Court, led by justice Tinuade Akomolafe Wilson, in a unanimous decision, ordered Saraki to return to the CCT for a retrial of three, out of eighteen-count charge, having been acquitted on fifteen others.

The appellate court held that the prosecution adequately established a prima-facie case against Saraki on counts 4, 5 and 6, in relation to his alleged failure to declare some houses he acquired in Ikoyi, Lagos.

Ripples Nigeria had on June 14, reported how the embattled Senate President was acquitted by the CCT of all the 18-count charges preferred by the Federal Government.

A two-man panel of the tribunal led by Danladi Umar unanimously accepted a no case submission filed by Saraki in the matter.

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Upholding the no case submission, the tribunal submitted that the evidence led by the prosecution in the asset declaration case against the Senate President was discredited under cross-examination and hence unreliable.

CCT went further to say that no reasonable tribunal would convict a defendant with the evidence the prosecution witnesses brought against the defendant before the tribunal.

Senate President Saraki, a member of the ruling APC was accused by the Federal Government to have corruptly acquired many properties while in office as Governor of Kwara State but failed to declare some of them in asset declaration forms he earlier filled and submitted at the Code of Conduct Bureau.

Saraki’s earlier bid to have Umar-led tribunal quash all counts leveled against him failed. Even when he filed for a no case submission, the Federal Government has insisted he has a case to answer.

While the case was ongoing, some Nigerians had maintained that the Senate President’s travails at the CCT was not unconnected with his emergence as the Senate President against his APC party design.

In Count 4, which was sustained by the Court of Appeal, Saraki was accused of making false asset declaration at the end of his tenure as the governor of Kwara State in 2011 and on assumption of office as a Senator in 2011 in respect of a property at 17A McDonald, Ikoyi, Lagos.

The prosecution contended that the defendant falsely declared to have acquired the Ikoyi property on September 6, 2006, from the proceeds of sale of rice and sugar.

In Count 5, the prosecution accused Saraki of making false asset declaration at the end of his tenure as the governor of Kwara State in 2011 and on assumption of office as a Senator in 2011, when he declared that he acquired the property at 17B McDonald, Ikoyi Lagos, on September 6, 2006 from the proceeds of sale of rice and sugar.

In Count 6, the prosecution also accused Saraki of making a false declaration in his Asset Declaration Form at the end of tenure as governor of Kwara in 2007 and on assumption of office as governor in 2007 by failing to declare his outstanding loan liabilities of N315,054,355.92 out of the loan of N380,000,000 obtained from Guaranty Trust Bank Plc.

Delivering judgment on Tuesday, Justice Akomolafe-Wilson held that there was “direct evidence” from the testimony of first, second and fourth prosecution witnesses supporting the three counts.

The Appeal Court Hereford “ordered that this case be remitted to the Code of Conduct Tribunal for the respondent (Saraki) to enter his defence,”

 

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