The Supreme Court will deliver judgment on the appeal seeking to quash the 13-count charge the Federal Government filed against the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, before the Code of Conduct Bureau, today.
The judgment will be delivered by a seven-man panel of Justices of the apex court, led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed.
The government had, in the charge it filed before the CCT, alleged that Saraki tampered with the assets declaration form he filled prior to his emergence as the Senate President.
He was said to have deliberately manipulated the assets declaration form by making anticipatory declarations.
Saraki, through his team of lawyers led by Chief J. B. Daudu, SAN, went before the apex court to challenge the competence of the charge which he said ought to be quashed for want of merit.
Relying on the provision of Paragraph 15(1) to the Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, Saraki maintained that the Justice Danladi Umar-led panel of the CCT was not legally and properly composed to try him.
He argued that a two-member panel of the CCT that has been presiding over the case against him fell short of the constitutional requirement.
Moreover, Saraki contended that the CCT, not being a court that is constitutionally equipped with criminal jurisdiction, lacked the powers to dock him on the basis of the 13-count charge.
Besides, it was his argument that the fact that there was no substantive Attorney-General of the Federation as at the time the charge was filed, rendered it incompetent.
FG, through its lawyer Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, SAN, however, urged the apex court to dismiss Saraki’s appeal for want of merit, insisting that it has established a prima-facie criminal case to warrant the prosecution of the Senate President before the CCT.
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