Supreme Court To Decide Saraki’s CCT Trial Today

Senate President Bukola Saraki

The Supreme Court will today (Friday) decide whether or not to continue the trial of the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on charges of false assets declaration before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

A five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Dattijo Muhammad, fixed July 6 for judgment after parties to the case adopted their appeal briefs on April 12.

The court will judge whether there is enough evidence for the trial before to CCT to continue.

The Danladi Umar-led CCT had last year June, terminated the trial after an application by Saraki.

The CCT made the decision after alleging that the prosecution, with its four witnesses and 49 exhibits tendered, did not show any credible evidence linking Saraki to the 18 counts preferred against him.

The 18 counts bordered on Saraki’s alleged false assets declaration and other breaches of the code of conduct for public officers.

The tribunal ruled that since there was no credible evidence, there wasn’t any need for Saraki to enter his defence.

However, three out of the 18 counts were restored by the Court of Appeal in Abuja ruling on December 12, 2017, in an appeal filed by the Federal Government against the decision of the CCT, and ordered Saraki to return to the CCT to defend the three charges.

But both Saraki and the Federal Government were not satisfied with separate parts of the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

While Saraki had appealed to the Supreme Court against the part of the Court of Appeal’s decision restoring three of the 18 counts, the Federal Government had cross-appealed against the part of the decision affirming the tribunal’s dismissal of the rest of the 15 counts.

At the hearing of Saraki’s appeal and the Federal Government’s cross-appeal on April 12, the lawyers representing both sides argued against each other’s appeals and in support of their individual cases.