Constitutional
lawyer, Barrister Mike Ozekhome yesterday heaped praises on the Code of Conduct
Tribunal, CCT for its no case submission ruling in the trial of Senate
President, Dr. Bukola Saraki. Ozekhome said despite the attempt by the
executive to manipulate the legal process, the CCT refused to be compromised.
“The Code of
conduct tribunal headed by Mr. Danladi Umar (not Justice Umar, as always
erroneously reported) was bold, courageous and right, in spite of visible
executive interference and manipulation to have discharged and acquitted Senate
President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on all the counts of false declaration of assets
leveled against him,” he stated.
Apparently
elated with the outcome of the case that has dragged on for months; the Senior
Advocate urged other anti-graft agencies to learn a lesson from the Umar-led
CCT rather than resorting to media trials. He asked: “Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, where is thy much trumpeted media trial of cases,
dramatic hype and conviction of suspects on the pages of newspapers and social
media, leading the country to now? Presidential Advisory Committee Against
Corruption, PACAC, where has your bare knuckles, warped and puerile “legal
advice” to the vindictive Executive to denigrate and humiliate otherwise
innocent opponents and opposition of government led it to? “You have actually
done more harm and damage to the so called anti -corruption “war” than all the
vampires and barbaric, primitive accumulators of our national wealth and common
patrimony joined together.
Through your poor researched and myopic stance, the
government has serially lost cases. Rather than put your “Fuji House of
Commotion” in order, you always shamelessly declare that “corruption is
fighting back” and that the courts are against the anti-corruption fight, as if
the courts owe the Executive a sacred duty and obligation to help it trample on
citizens’ rights and win badly prepared and lousily prosecuted cases at all
cost,” he continued.
Ozekhome added that he had no doubt at the commencement of
Saraki’s trial that the federal government would lose the case for according to
him, there was no evidence to aid the prosecution on the matter. “I had
predicted last year, on television and my two weekly columns in the Sun and
Telegraph newspapers, after a calm reading of daily media reports of the case
that Saraki will win, be discharged and acquitted.
This Nostradamic prediction
was anchored simply on the premises that no scintilla of evidence was being led
by any of the four prosecution witnesses to prove the legal ingredients of the
alleged false declaration of assets by Saraki.
Rather, what we saw from the
EFCC stable as usual, was the usual Baba Sala’ Alawada Kerikeri’s Odeon
histrionics and sensational media hype of Saraki receiving humongous pension
from Kwara State government, whilst simultaneously receiving salary from the
National Assembly ;of Saraki taking loans to buy many properties; of Saraki
owning many assets, etc.
How did these prove specific declaration of assets?”
he asked adding that “no attempt was made by the EFCC to prove the essential
ingredients of false declaration,” he added
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