The Supreme Court will on Friday determine whether or not to stop the
trial of the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, before the Code of
Conduct Tribunal on charges of false assets declaration.
A
seven-man bench led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud
Mohammed, had on December 4, 2015, fixed Friday for judgment after
entertaining arguments on an appeal by Saraki, with the Federal
Government urging the apex court to dismiss the Senate President’s case
and allow the trial before the CCT to continue.
Saraki’s appeal
filed through his lead counsel, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), is challenging
the majority judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja delivered on
October 30, 2015, which affirmed the jurisdiction of the CCT to try him
and the competence of the charges of false assets declaration preferred
against him by the Federal Government.
The Federal Government had
in September 2015 arraigned Saraki before the CCT on 13 counts of false
assets declaration which he allegedly made in 2003 as Governor of Kwara
State.
The Danadi Umar-led CCT had dismissed Saraki’s protest against the competence of the charges and jurisdiction of the tribunal.
Saraki
had appealed against the decision of the tribunal, but the appeal was
dismissed by a two-to-one split decision of a three-man bench of the
Court of Appeal in Abuja on October 30, 2015.
He further appealed
to the Supreme Court maintaining that the charges were not competent
and that the CCT lacked the jurisdiction to try him because it was not
duly constituted as it comprised two instead of three members provided
for by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court had on November 12,
2015 through a five-man panel, led by now retired Justice John Fabiyi,
granted an order of stay of proceedings of Saraki’s trial before the
CCT, pending the hearing and determination of his appeal.
After
granting the order of stay of proceedings, the apex court ordered
parties –Saraki and the Federal Government – to exchange their briefs of
argument within 14 days.
A new panel headed by the CJN which
heard the appeal on December 4, 2015 comprised Justices Walter Onnoghen,
Tanko Muhammad, Sylvester Ngwuta, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, Chima Nweze and
Amiru Sanusi.
Saraki’s lawyer, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), raised
seven grounds of appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal,
urging the Supreme Court to set aside the lower court’s judgment, the
entire proceedings of the CCT and the charges preferred against him
before the tribunal.
At the hearing of the appeal, Daudu faulted
the judgment of the appeal court on among other grounds that it
erroneously affirmed the competence of the proceedings of the Code of
Conduct Tribunal, which sat on the appellant’s case with only two
members as against the three provided for in the provisions of Paragraph
15(1) of the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution.
Daudu also
maintained that the charges filed by a then Deputy Director in the
Federal Ministry of Justice, Mr. Muslim Hassan (now a Federal High Court
judge), when the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation had
not been occupied by any person, were incompetent.
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