Saraki: The trials of a Senate President

Senate President Bukola Saraki
With just 100 days into his tenure as the Senate President of the eighth Senate, Bukola may be facing the trials of his political career, which his supporters see as an extension of the challenges to his emergence as Senate President on June 9, 2015. The opposition to his emergence rested on the suspicion that he may be ambitious, and would use the top office of Senate President as a stepping stone into the presidential race in 2019. On his part, the Senate President perceived unseen hands of top party leaders outside the Senate in his predicament, but at a point when he thought the challenges had been relegated to his past, three cases from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) have reared up their ugly heads to shake his exalted seat.
First, on July 23, his wife, Toyin Saraki, was invited by the EFCC to answer questions in relation to several contracts executed by companies said to be linked to her while her husband held sway as the Kwara governor. Secondly, last week Kennedy Izuagbe, a former director of Societe Generale Bank Nigeria Plc and managing director of Carlisle Properties and Investment Limited, companies associated with the Senate President, was declared wanted by the EFCC over a case of conspiracy and money laundering to the tune of over N3.6 billion. Thirdly, CCT, invited the Senate President for trial on 13-counts charge of false assets declaration- a breach of Section 15 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, Cap C15, LFN 2004 and punishable under Section 23 (2) as incorporated under paragraph 18 of Part 1, Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution.
According to the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, the functions of the Bureau is found in Section 3 (d) and states thus: “Receive complaints about non-compliance with or breach of this Act and where the Bureau considers it necessary to do so, refer such complaints to the Code of Conduct Tribunal established by Section 20 of this Act. Provided that where the person concerned make a written admission of such breach or non-compliance, no reference to the Tribunal shall be necessary.”
Saraki was charged on 13-count charge of false assets declaration- a breach of Section 15 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, Cap C15, LFN 2004 and punishable under Section 23 (2) as incorporated under paragraph 18 of Part 1, Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution.
According to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Saraki made false declarations in his Assets Declaration Form for Public Officers at the beginning and end of his tenures as governor of Kwara State between May 29, 2003 and May 28, 2007; and between May 29, 2007 and May 28, 2011.
The CCB alleged that Saraki made anticipatory declarations, made wrong declarations not attributable to his income, gift or loan as approved by the Code of Conduct for public officers, as well as concealed certain properties in the form.
For instance, Saraki claimed to have acquired a five bedroom house and undeveloped plot at 15A and 15B MacDonald Street, Ikoyi Lagos valued at N300 million and N200 million respectively in 2000 through his company Carlisle Properties Ltd. But the CCB alleges that the properties were in actual fact sold by the Implementation Committee on Federal Government Landed Properties in 2006 to his company Tiny Tree Ltd and Vitti Oil Ltd for aggregate sum of N396.150 million.
The CCB also alleged that Saraki claimed to have acquired two undeveloped plots at 17A and 17B Macdonald Street, Ikoyi Lagos at an aggregate sum of N497.2 million which he wrongly claimed was from proceeds of sale of rice and sugar commodities which is not attributable to his income, gift or loan as approved by the Code of Conduct for public officers.
The Bureau also accused Saraki of refusal to declare, at the beginning of his second tenure as governor of Kwara State in 2011, Plot 24 Glover Road Ikoyi Lagos, which he acquired between 2007 and 2008 through his company Carlisle Properties Ltd from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for a total sum of three hundred of N325 million. Saraki was also accused of making false declaration in respect of properties in other parts of the country and cash deposits in banks.
But Saraki in a statement through his Special Adviser (Media and Publicity) Yusuph Olaniyonu explained that the senate president believed he has an inalienable right to resort to the same judiciary (Federal High Court) for protection when he feels his fundamental rights are about to be infringed upon. The Senate President’s spokesman had said earlier last week that the EFCC which had investigated Saraki’s Asset declaration didn’t get the correct facts before the CCT invited the Senate President for trial.
On the absence of the senate president from the tribunal last Friday Olaniyonu stated that: “The Senate President is a law-abiding citizen and his absence from the Tribunal today was based on legal advice that the Tribunal will respect the decision of the Federal High Court, which is obviously superior. Also, he relied on a letter from the Chief Justice of Nigeria directed to the Chairman of the Tribunal last May that they are not judicial officers and are inferior to the regular High Court as defined by the law and that they take official oath, not judicial oath.”
SENATORS SPEAK IN DISCORDANT TUNES:
The Senate, though on recess at the moment, has been unsettled since last week when the Senate President Saraki was invited to appear before the CCT. For the Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan’s camp, the Unity Forum, it is a hide-and-seek game. None of them wanted to speak on record. However, one of the senators in that camp remarked on the development, thus: “We are watching the events as they are unfolding and our one and only request is the restoration of credibility to the Upper Chamber. “
However, lending support to Saraki, Senator Sabi Aliyu Abdullahi (Niger North) and his counterpart from Nasarawa South, Senator Hussain Salihu, said the charges levelled against Saraki by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), remained allegations and, therefore, will not be allowed to cause any distraction to the legislative agenda of the Senate.
“I want to believe an allegation remains an allegation; and our laws are very clear. It is an allegation until it is proven; I want to believe it remains an allegation. However, let’s take a closer look at what the allegations are, dating back to 2003 to date. I think there is something fishy about it. It is very obvious, of course, we know what has happened since the inauguration of the 8th Senate,” Senator Abdullahi said.
In his reaction, Senator Salihu (Nasarawa South) said those trying to dig into Saraki’s past because he is now Senate President will soon be tired because the Senate will not abandon him as their duly elected leader.
Salihu added that, “The charges against Saraki, as far as I am concerned, are just distractions, in the sense that we are talking about issues of 13 years ago and people are bringing it up now”.
After his long battles with the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Senate President received the overwhelming support of the Upper Chamber. A vote of confidence was passed on Saraki and other principal officers of the Senate by 81 Senators including 47 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senators and 34 of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Saraki, according to observers was unstable in piloting the affairs of the Upper Chamber.
‘RULE OF LAW ON TRIAL’
A legal luminary and former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Justice, Dr. Ali Ahmad, has described the prosecution of Senate President Bukola Saraki as an infringement of the Rule of Law.
Dr Ahmad, who is the Speaker of Kwara State House of Assembly, in an interview with Daily Trust on Sunday stressed that the current issue is not about Saraki but the need to protect the rule of law.
According to him, the law establishing the Code of Conduct Bureau empowers it to inform the defendant about any inconsistency observed in his assets declaration form which it did not do before prosecuting Saraki.
Besides, he added that there was an earlier order of the Federal High Court which summoned the parties on Monday yet the CCB went ahead with the prosecution.
Ahmad enthused that even if a Federal High Court and CCB have coordinate jurisdiction, an earlier order by the FHC is binding on the CCB. Another aberration in the whole saga, he noted, was the reference to the tribunal chairman Danladi Umar as Justice, saying the National Judicial Commission (NJC) had warned him to stop referring to himself as a Justice because he is not a judicial officer.
He said, “When I raised the alarm about non- existence of Attorney General, I was concerned then without an Attorney General, this war against corruption will go nowhere. Now, I have been vindicated. You are aware that the law of CCB states that only the Attorney General can direct the forming of a charge. That’s why we are saying that people, current legislators, lawyers, and those who see themselves as conscience of the nation, they should not support Saraki but they should speak on the side of the rule of law. They should speak up. Silence is not good in this matter, they should stand for the rule of law. My concern is the rule of law.
Everybody knows that the law of the CCB empowers it to inform the defendant about the inconsistency in his form. Number one thing, Saraki was not informed, ‘you have foreign account, come and tell us, you over declare, come out and tell us’. So they didn’t comply with their rule of law, that’s number one.
Number two, there is an earlier court order. Even if the two courts are of coordinate jurisdiction, that an earlier court had issued an order binds the other court. This is the way of the rule of law. Number three, the chairman of the tribunal is not a judicial Officer. He did not take oath and the Chief Justice of Nigeria in a May 2015 letter had warned him that he should desist and that he should disallow people from referring to him as a judge.”
Ahmad stressed that the prosecution of Saraki is political and it is not encouraging for the current war against corruption. Senate President Bukola Saraki last Friday stormed the Court of Appeal in Abuja to stop the police and other security agencies from executing the order of the CCT for him to be arrested and brought to the tribunal on Monday..
In the appeal filed by his counsel, Joseph Daudu (SAN), the Senate President argued that the tribunal erred in law and acted without jurisdictioný because CCT has no powers to carry out criminal trial for a charge which is being challenged at the Federal High Court.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja is expected to hear the ex-parte motion filed by the Senate President on Monday.