Justice Danladi Umar of the Code of Conduct Tribunal sitting in Abuja, has over-ruled an application for an adjournment by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and ordered his trial on 13 counts of false and anticipatory asset declaration, which was scheduled to commence today.
The panel gave the order in a ruling after a stand-down which the judge took to prepare its ruling after entertaining argument and counter-argument on Saraki’s application.
Umar ruled that the defendant’s application for adjournment offended provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
When proceedings started at about 10.30am on Tuesday, the prosecuting counsel, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), informed the tribunal that the matter was on March 24, adjourned till today for trial to commence.
Recall that since the commencement of the case in September last year, the matter had been adjourned more than five times at Saraki’s instance.
