Vanguard said that a five-man panel of justices of the appellate court headed by Justice Abdul Aboki, supported to the judgment on the appeal. This was after the court heard arguments from Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, counsel to the federal government and Kanu Agabu, lead counsel to Saraki.
Remenber that Saraki had gone before the appellate court to ask the legal propriety of the 16-count criminal charge the federal government of Nigeria entered against him before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
He is challenging jurisdiction of the Justice Danladi Umar-headed tribunal to try him on the grounds of a charge he said was minute and defective in legal world.
The charge hovers on his alleged false declaration of his assets, money laundering, operating a foreign accounts while in office the governor of Kwara state and allegation that he received salaries as a governor, four years after his tenure had expired.Althuogh, Danladi Umar, the chairman of Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), said in his rulling that he will not withdraw from the trial of Saraki owing to the fact that there would be no one to sit in judgment for the case.
Saraki had earlier asked Umar to draw back from the case due to his case with the Nigerian Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). But on Thursday, April 21, Umar had paid deaf ear to the application by the Senate president which demanded him to withdraw from the trial. In the application, Saraki insisted that the CCT chairman was biased. Saraki who has been facing trial since September 22, 2015 was charged with 16 counts of corruption
