The Supreme Court Thursday adjourned indefinitely hearing in the appeals filed by the Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki and the Federal government to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal in the trial of Saraki on false assets declaration.
\nThe apex court put off the two appeals sine die to enable Saraki and government file and exchange process relating to the legal tussle within the time allowed by law.
\nAt Thursday\u2019s proceeding, Counsel to the Federal Government, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs SAN, informed the court that the Senate President had just served on him, his response to the cross appeal of the government.
\nHe insisted that he needed time to study the reply and file his own process and serve same on Saraki as required by law.
\nJacobs asked for adjournment to enable him do so. This was not opposed by counsel to Saraki, Mr. Kanu Agabi (SAN).
\nJustice Mohammed Musa Dattijo who presided over four other Justices of the court however said that the court will not give definite date for hearing until all processes have been filed.
\nJustice Dattijo said that the Registrar of the court will communicate hearing date to parties involved as soon as their processes are confirmed filed and exchanged.
\nSaraki and government are contesting the decision of the Court of Appeal, Abuja division which nullified 15 out of 18 count charges filed against Saraki by government for being baseless and frivolous but asked Saraki to open defense on the rest three charges.
\nSaraki is praying the Supreme Court to void the entire 18 count charges, while the Federal Government, in its own cross appeal, is praying the apex court to uphold the entire charges against the Senate President for defense.
\nThe Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) where Saraki was arraigned in 2015 by government on 18 count charges of false assets declaration had discharged and acquitted him on the ground that the charges were based on hearsay evidence that could not be relied upon to convict the defendant.
\nChairman of the tribunal, Mr. Danladi Yakubu Umar, in his ruling in a no- case submission made by Saraki agreed that the charges have no proper foundation in law and struck them out.
\nThis prompted the government to move to the court of appeal to challenge the tribunal’s decision.
\nThe Tribunal (CCT) had on March 8 adjourned indefinitely the defense of Saraki in the three count charges pending when Saraki\u2019s appeal at the Supreme Court is determined.
\nSaraki is to defend himself on three of the 18 counts of false assets declaration filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
\nThe adjournment, according to the Danladi Yakubu Umar-led CCT, was to await the decision of Supreme Court on the appeal filed by Saraki and the Federal Government\u2019s cross-appeal in respect of the case.
\n\u201cThe tribunal has decided to adjourn sine die (indefinitely) pending the outcome of the appeals at the Supreme Court,\u201d Umar ruled after dismissing the prosecution\u2019s objection to an adjournment.
\n\u2018The decision of the Supreme Court will \u201cinvariably affect\u201d the decision of the tribunal\u201d, adding: \u201cWe have to protect the integrity of the Supreme Court first but we need to hear from you (the prosecution and defense counsels.)
\nResponding, Mr. Rotimi Jacob, counsel to the federal government, had advised the court to proceed with the defense \u201cin view of the position of law today.\u201d
\nHe argued that section 306 of the administration of criminal justice act enjoins the court not to entertain any application for stay.
\n\u201cSo the appeal before the Supreme Court is not an issue of reference. And section 305 also permits the court to go ahead assuming it is an issue of reference,\u201d he added.
\nBut Kanu Agabi, Saraki\u2019s counsel, said the idea of staying the proceedings \u201cis not our initiative.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is the initiative of the tribunal and we commend you for it. The prosecution also has an appeal at the Supreme Court, so it is not just us,\u201d he said.
\nThe tribunal consequently adjourned the matter sine die.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Supreme Court Thursday adjourned indefinitely hearing in the appeals filed by the Senate President Dr. Bukola Saraki and the Federal government to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal in the trial of Saraki on false assets declaration. The apex court put off the two appeals sine die to enable Saraki and government […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}