Bukola Saraki, Nigeria’s Senate President is confident that he will win again at the Appeal Court in his ongoing trial over alleged false assets declaration when he was Governor of Kwara State.
The Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, had recently acquitted the number three most powerful person in the country, but the lawmaker said on Friday that he remained undaunted.
He was of the opinion that the appeal against the CCT ruling was nothing but another attempt to grandstand and embark on another media trial without any substance.
“This is why the Senate President is sure it will be another exercise in futility,” Saraki said on Friday in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Yusuph Olaniyonu.
The Senate President said he was confident that the verdict by the appellate court would not be different from that of the Tribunal as the facts of the case remained the same and the grounds on which the decision of the CCT was based remain unassailable.
He said anybody who had been following the proceedings and the evidence given by the prosecution witnesses during examination in chief and cross-examination should know that if presented before any court of justice and law, the same outcome as in the CCT would be arrived at.
Saraki added that those who were running commentary on the ruling by the tribunal and criticising it were those who were not even familiar with the case and the details coming out of the trial.
The statement said that was why Saraki continued to wonder how desperate some people in government and their collaborators outside had become to pull him down at all cost and by all means up to the point that they did not care if they destroyed the institution of the judiciary in the process.
“That is why they sponsored stories of allegation of bribery in an online publication against the tribunal judges. The Senate President seizes this opportunity to call on security agencies to immediately commence investigation on this bribery allegation. It is his views that those who made the allegation should be invited to substantiate their claims.
“This same desperation made a man like Prof. Itse Sagay, the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Anti-Corruption to appear on tape, admitting in a foreign country that he interfered with the process in the tribunal when in an unethical manner he was instructing the judge on how to conduct the trial,” the statement said.
According to the statement, “Corruption is not just about giving or diverting money; when an official interferes with the judicial process with a view to achieving personal objectives, it is corruption. The Senate President notes that another sign of desperation by those who want to get him convicted at all cost was the failed antics of the prosecution counsel, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) who, in collusion with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission sought to manipulate evidence at the tribunal.”
