The trial of the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki resumed at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), today with the first prosecution witness, Michael Wetkas, admitting to the Tribunal that some of the evidence he tendered before the court against the Senate President was incomplete.
Saraki is currently facing a 16- count charge of false asset declaration from 13 years ago when he was Governor of Kwara state.
At the resumption of hearing today, Wetkas, an operative of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), told the court that Saraki did not declare a property he bought in 1993 in hos assets declaration of 2003.
Wetkas said, “Saraki on 16 September 2003, did not declare a property he purchased in Maitama, Abuja in 1993.”
He alleged that Saraki acquired the property through his company, Carlyed Properties Limited from Abuja Geographical Information System (AGIS).
When asked by Saraki’s lawyer, Paul Usoro, SAN, to show evidence of the letter by EFCC to AGIS requesting for information on the property Saraki did not declare which was tendered before the court, Wetkas admitted that the anti-graft commission submitted incomplete evidence.
Wetkas said “I believe that in the course of administrative work and numbering some parts went missing.”
Usoro further established that Saraki, in an attempt to ensure transparency in his transactions, gave the power of attorney, meaning – the authority to act for another person in a specified or all legal or financial matters – to both Akao and Allied Properties.
Wetkas, in his testimony, also stated that according to Exhibit 125 and 126, the original Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) and all other supporting documents of the Maitama property in question, were in the name of David Baba Akao.
On further cross-examination, Wetkas further accepted that Allied Properties, a company that was registered on 15th March 1992, also received another C of O, from former FCT Minister, Nasir El Rufai, in its name – making the Federal Government charge against Saraki, devoid of merit.
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