History was made when Walter
Onnoghen, embattled chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), entered the dock at the
Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). He was charged with false assets declaration
exactly two years after the CCT discharged and acquitted Saraki of similar
charges.
In the heat of the trial,
Onnoghen turned in his resignation but that did not save him from the hammer of
the tribunal. On Thursday, Danladi Umar, CCT chairman, found him guilty of the
six counts preferred against him by the federal government.
The tribunal chairman ordered
that he be removed from the office and also prevented from holding public
office for 10 years. He also ordered that the money in the five bank accounts
of Onnoghen that he did not declare be confiscated.
In this piece, we look at how
some prominent Nigerians fared when they walked this path.
BUKOLA SARAKI
In September 2015, the Code of
Conduct Bureau (CCB) filed an 18-count charge of false asset declaration
against Saraki at the CCT. The trial, which commenced in March 2016, lasted
1,018 days before he was let off the hook.
In June 2018, the CCT dismissed
the charges against Saraki on the grounds that the prosecution, with its four
witnesses and 49 exhibits tendered, only led to hearsay evidence.
However, the federal government
filed an appeal and a month later, the supreme court ruled that Saraki had no
case to answer at the CCT.
You can read how his trial played
out here.
GODSDAY ORUBEBE
Godsday Orubebe, former minister
of Niger Delta affairs, was slammed with a one-count charge of false
declaration of asset by the federal government in 2016.
He was accused of failing to
declare a property known as plot 2057, Asokoro, Abuja, while he was a public
officer.
Orubebe had told the tribunal
that the property was no longer his as of the time he went into public service.
He said he had sold the property
to his creditor; hence he saw no need to declare what was not his.
But the tribunal convicted him on
the premise that the title deeds of the property still bore his name.
Umar found him guilty of the
charge and ordered a seizure of the property.
However, an appeal court
overturned the judgment of the CCT in 2017, ruling that it was clear that
Orubebe sold the property even if the title deeds still had his name on them.
Orubebe came into limelight when
he tried to disrupt the collation of the 2015 presidential election results in
Abuja.
SYLVESTER NGWUTA
Sylvester Ngwuta, a supreme court
judge, was first arraigned before the CCT on an 8-count charge bothering on
false assets declaration in 2017.
Ngwuta is one of the federal
judges whose residence was raided by the Department of State Service (DSS) in
October 2016. The secret police had claimed that it uncovered huge sums of
money in various denominations. On February 10, 2017, the office of the attorney-general
of the federation (AGF) filed a 10-count charge against Ngwuta at the tribunal.
In May of the same year, the CCT
quashed the false asset charges and discharged Ngwuta.
The tribunal said Ngwuta could
not be tried before it unless he had been subjected to disciplinary processes
of the National Judicial Council (NJC).
Onnoghen’s lawyers had raised
this before the CCT but Umar waved it aside.
BOLA TINUBU
Bola Tinubu, ex-governor of Lagos
was arraigned before the CCT in November 2011 for allegedly operating foreign
bank accounts, contrary to the constitution. Tinubu was accused of operating 10
foreign accounts during his tenure as governor between 1999 and 2007 in the
charges filed against him by CCB at the tribunal.
However, the three-man panel of
the tribunal dismissed the case at the second appearance of the former governor
at the court.
It held that “there is no
significant basis to proceed against Tinubu as the charges were “defective and
shoddy.”
The tribunal held that the
charges did not disclose a prima facie case against the accused person as there
was no proof of evidence attached to the charge.
Umar said the charges against
Tinubu did not show that the accounts were held by the accused persons.
“Some (of the foreign accounts)
even bear female names…how can the accused be made to answer such charges?” he
said.
IKE EKWEREMADU
In March 2018, Festus Keyamo, a
senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), filed a suit on behalf of the federal
government seeking the temporary forfeiture of alleged undeclared assets traced
to Ike Ekweremadu, deputy senate president
Twenty-two properties were
reportedly traced to the deputy senate president, nine in Nigeria, two in the
UK, eight in Dubai and three are in the US.
Following the purported
discovery, Abubakar Malami, attorney general of the federation (AGF), had filed
a false declaration of assets charge against Ekweremadu before the CCT.
Ekweremadu was said to have
failed to disclose the foreign assets in his declarations to the CCB.
In October 2018, the federal
government filed charges against Ekweremadu and Bassey Akpan, senator
representing Akwa Ibom north-east district, for alleged failure to declare
their assets.
He was billed to be arraigned
before the CCT in March 2018 but that never saw the light of the day. The
deputy senate president denied all the allegations, saying he has no case to
answer.
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