The Court of Appeal has dismissed 15 out of the 18 count charges filed against the President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki
It will be recalled that in a unanimous decision, the two-man panel tribunal headed by Justice Danladi Umar, held that the Federal Government failed to prove essential elements of all the allegations it leveled against Saraki.
The tribunal held that oral and documentary evidence that the federal government adduced before it were discredited during cross-examination, saying that the proof of evidence was so ‘manifestly unreliable that no reasonable court or tribunal could rely on it to make any conviction.
Specifically, the appellate court held that the prosecution established discrepancies in the claims on the asset declaration forms as to how the two houses in Ikoyi were acquired.
According to the judgement, the Senate president needs to explain the discrepancies that the properties he claimed were bought from sales of rice and sugar in his asset declaration form were actually bought from loans acquired from a commercial bank.
The court concluded that credible evidence was presented by the prosecution on counts 4,5 and 6 to warrant the defendant to be called upon to defend himself on how he acquired the properties disclosed in the three counts.