The Code of Conduct Tribunal on Wednesday dismissed charges false assets declaration against the Senate President Bukola Saraki.
Headed by Justice Danladi Umar, the tribunal said the decision was based on the unreliability of the evidence of the principal witness in the case.
Saraki’s time at the helm of Nigeria’s upper parliamentary chamber has been marred by numerous accusations of misconduct and investigations, though none have stuck.
Last October, he was cleared of altering Senate rules to get himself elected.
President Muhammadu Buhari, now halfway through his four-year term, came to power on a mandate to clean up corruption. But halfway through his four-year term, the results have been mixed, and one of his own senior advisors was suspended after a Senate investigation into embezzlement.
The Code of Conduct Tribunal cleared Saraki of the charges made in 2015, saying that the prosecutor and Code of Conduct Bureau’s case did not have enough substance to incriminate the Senate president.
“After undergoing the crucible of a tortuous trial, my vindication today calls for celebration,” Saraki said in a statement after the tribunal verdict.
The original charges from 2015 mostly related to the ownership of land held by Saraki’s company Carlisle Properties Ltd between 2003 and 2011.
Other charges related to his transfer of $3.4 million to an account outside Nigeria while he was governor of Kwara state, and sending 1.5 million pounds sterling to a European account to cover a mortgage for a London property.
“I harbour no grudge against anyone, regardless of the role they might have played in the persecution that I had endured in the last two years,” Saraki’s statement continued.
“I believe that If my trial had in anyway given hope to the common man that no matter the forces arraigned against him, he can still get justice in our courts, then my tribulation had not been in vain.”
