The Code of Conduct Tribunal on
Wednesday cleared the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, of false asset
declaration charges, brought against him in September 2015.
Saraki was slammed with a
13-count charge by the federal government, shortly after his emergence as
Senate president. He made several attempts to
prevent the trial without initial success.
In his application for a no-case
submission, Saraki’s lawyers argued that the allegations made against their
client was based on petitions from complainants who never appeared as witnesses
to testify.
The lawyers, led by a former
Attorney General of the Federation, Kanu Agabi, argued that the petitions upon
which the allegations were based, did not form part of the documents presented
in court. They prayed the tribunal to dismiss
the case, on the grounds that the prosecution failed to link Saraki with
the charges.
In his ruling on the application,
the CCT said the failure of the prosecution to present witnesses who were fully
part of the alleged offence against the senate president, made their evidence
“incurably defective”.
An official of the Code of
Conduct Bureau, Samuel Madujemu, had appeared in the tribunal to testify
regarding the bureau’s findings which resulted in the alleged offences.
Mr. Madujemu had stated that the
evidences he presented in the tribunal were based on information provided by
the bureau’s investigation team.
Another member of the tribunal’s
bench, William Atedze, said it was unlawful to depend on the word “team”, for
the presentation of an evidence, since the law does not recognize “team” as a
source of evidence.
He said the evidence alluded to
in any court of law should only be given by “a witness who saw, heard or took
part in the transaction, upon which he is testifying to”.
“The evidence is incurably
defective. The prosecution has failed to link the defendant with the alleged
offence,” Mr. Atedze said.
Speaking after the ruling, a
prosecution counsel, Pious Kehinde, said steps were already on to get copies of
the ruling. He said the prosecution will study the ruling and determine the
next course of action.
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Hmmm the race for 2019 has started and APC needs a united front indeed the judgment is good for their democrazy
ReplyDeletethat enough evidence in the fight against corruption, haaaa Nigeria's we are always the fool
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