Treat Me As You Treated Tinubu, Saraki Asks Tribunal

Senate President Bukola Saraki maintained yesterday that the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) must discharge and acquit him the way it did to former Lagos State Governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He said the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) should have invited him to clarify issues on his asset declaration form before charging him to the tribunal for alleged false asset declaration, a ground for which, he said, the CCT struck out a similar case against Tinubu. According to him, the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who was accused of false declaration of assets, was set free by the tribunal because of the failure of the CCB to fulfill necessary conditions of inviting him first to make statement on the alleged discrepancies before referring him for trial. Saraki, through his lawyer, Mr. Kanu Agabi (SAN) told the tribunal chairman, Mr. Danladi Umar, that Saraki should have been invited to clarify issues before charging him before the tribunal. After hearing on the motion by Saraki challenging the jurisdiction of the tribunal to try him, the CCT yesterday fixed March 24, 2016 to rule on the motion. During yesterday’s trial, counsel to Saraki, Agabi argued that ten other former governors who had the opportunity of being invited to defend their asset declaration before CCB and where not referred to the tribunal after taking explanations on their declared assets. He urged the tribunal to dismiss the charges against Saraki for being incompetent, baseless and having been filed without observing the due process of the law, even as he also appealed to the tribunal to quash the charges against his client on the ground that the charges were not competent in law