The nation’s number three citizen has been embroiled in a battle for survival against the alleged wily contrivances of his erstwhile political bedfellows and supposed traducers. A fight for political survival characterized by intense lobbying and dogged use of the legal machinery to wriggle out of a supposed politically contrived trial at the Code of Court Tribunal charging the Kwara –born politician of failing to declare his assets in accordance with the law. I have been carefully following the developments at the CCT given the intense furore and brouhaha generated by the matter and have come to the ineluctable conclusion that the major protagonist in this unfolding plot, Saraki himself needs to do some serious soul searching.
The embattled Senate President just like every Nigerian Is entitled to his rights to fair hearing as enshrined under Chapter 4 of the constitution. The rights to presumption of innocence also inures in his favour ; but unlike any other Nigerian, he occupies the exulted position of the Senate President in the hallowed chamber of the legislative arm of Government. His office occupies an eminent place in the political tapestry of this nation and is therefore one that should not be sullied on the altar of a personal agenda of the occupant. It is unclear whether the resilient and resolute legal energy being dissipated by the Senate President is as a result of an ingrained belief in the potency of the seat to protect him from any impending fall from grace that the development may occasion to his person.
A lot has been expended by the Senate President in his bid to truncate or ultimately asphyxiate the charges leveled against him both materially and in personnel. To illustrate; the Senate President besieged the CCT with over 60 Senators and hired over 30 lawyers to defend him at the inception of this matter with almost twenty of the lawyers pooled from the eminent and distinguished body of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs). Thus, the likes of Ahmed Raji, SAN, Adebayo Adelodun, SAN, J. B Daudu, SAN, Lawal Rabana, SAN, Paul Usoro, SAN & the latest; Kanu Agabi, SAN have at different times led his well assembled team of lawyers. One would have expected that with the well decorated & accomplished names in his legal team, that the Senate President would have submitted himself for trial given the enormous resources that he must have expended assembling them, but alas!
It has been one interlocutory appeal after another. Not only did his lawyers challenge the jurisdiction of the CCT to try him in a separate suit at the Federal High Court, they filed series of Preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the CCT to try Saraki. When this failed, they sought a stay of the proceedings at the CCT pending the determination of his appeal. Reprieve, albeit a temporary one finally came his way some time in December 2015 when the Supreme Court in a ruling delivered by John Fabunmi, J.S.C ordered a stay of the proceedings at the CCT pending the determination of his appeal to the Court of Appeal in an alarming disregard to the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 as well as decided cases on the point even by the same Supreme Court to the effect that criminal matters/trials cannot be stayed.
Saraki’s supporters went to town to celebrate the “victory’ with so much pomp & fanfare. The fact that this was a very short-lived “victory was not lost on the embattled politician however as he commenced intense politicking and lobbying to get the ears of the important members of his party thought to be behind his travails; one of which is the President. Any meticulous Nigerian that followed the Ministerial screening would have observed the very detached and almost non-commital mien of the Senate President during the exercise as it turned out that Mr. Senate President did not want to “rock the boat” .
The Senate President cast a very perturbed figure during the entirety of plenary for the screening. He had the look of a man with a gun pointed behind his head. Gone was the rambunctious press release from the Senate Presidency declaring that the screeing would not be “ business as usual”. Not only was the promise that nominees would not be allowed to just “bow & go” reneged upon, some of the nominees like Ngige who was a former member of the floor, saw the screening as a political platform to crack jokes with scant attention paid to the business of the day.
It was also during this period that he tried to mend fences with the faction of the APC Senators in the House opposed to his emergence as Senate President .It was clear the Senate President was playing along with the party hierarchy which was piqued at the way and manner he ascended the seat of the Senate President against the wishes of some powerful chieftains. If he thought he was going to get any soft landing by working out a political solution to the problem, he was mistaken. Few weeks down the line, reality stared him in the face once more as he lost his appeal to both the Court of Appeal & the Supreme Court. It was back to square one for the Kwara-born politician. All roads again lead back to the CCT. All the furtive & surreptitious political-horse-trading characterized by half-hearted denials, inanities and glib fallacies by the Senate President’s men amounted to nothing.
On the 5th day of April, 2016 when the trial was slated to start, his lead counsel was absent while the leader of the team , Mr Paul Usoro again told the court that another appeal has been filed by the Defendant and asked for an adjournment. This was swiftly over-ruled by the court as the prosecution was called upon to call its witnesses. Not only did the Senate President make a grand entry with his fawning pack of Senators whose number is decreasing by the day as well as his retinue of Senior lawyers . Obsequious & obsessive declarations of support by Senators for their embattled colleague and leader has become a mantra of the Upper legislative chamber. A baffling legislative imprimatur to the teething impunity in the land was to rear its ugly head when the National Assembly was locked and plenary suspended because of the trial of the Senate President on more than two ocassions.
If anybody was in doubt that Saraki would have his day in court, the events of the last few days leaves no shred of doubt whatsoever. The Senate President has to face his trial squarely. The issue of resigning from the seat of the Senate President is a no-brainer. A lot of noise has been made about the rumoured political ambitions of the Senate President. Whether that is the reason behind his strangle-hold on his position is yet to be seen. Suffice it to say that the sacro-sanctity of the seat of the Senate President is bigger than the ambitions of an occupant of that office. Clearing his name from the lingering allegations and sundry charges hanging over his head would no doubt attract immense political goodwill to the embattled number three citizen. However, if the Senate President decides to test the waters by clinging tenaciously to a sullied seat and is ultimately booted out of office in ignominy by his own self -inflicted infamy, he would find his prison confinement too lonely to endure.
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