Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja
Senator Bukola Saraki
The trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) got underway after numerous attempts to stall it. His false asset declaration finally took off in Abuja today at the Code of Conduct Tribunal with the first prosecution witness, Micheal Wess giving evidence.
Wess is the Principal Detective Superintendent of the EFCC. He said his schedule of duties is the investigation of cases assigned him by his superiors.
He acknowledged that the defendant was governor of central Nigerian state of Kwara between 2003 to 2011.
After his tenure, the Commission received several petitions from different groups. One of the groups was Kwara Freedom Network which wrote several petitions accusing Saraki of abuse of office and misappropriation of public funds.
The petitions were assigned various groups for investigation. He said in 2014, the former EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde received an intelligence information related to the defendant.
On the basis of the information, Lamorde set of a team of three investigators headed by him, Chris Odofin and Nura Bako.
The team was tasked to investigate the intelligence report. The report was reviewed by the team and in the course of investigation, it was discovered that there are several companies linked to the defendant. Carlisle Property and Investment Company Limited; Skyview Property Ltd; Lin. Tiny Tee Limited and several other companies.
Some of the companies maintained accounts in GTB, Zenith Bank, Intercontinental Bank, now part of Access Bank and other banks.
It was also discovered that the defendant maintained three accounts with GTB- in naira, dollars and pounds sterling.
The accounts were analysed in the course of the investigation. In the naira account, it was discovered that between 2005 and 2013, the account had total inflow and outflow of N4 billion.
The major source of inflow of income into the account was discovered to be loans …Read More
Source:: PM Newspaper
