Can you imagine a litigant walking up to Supreme Court
Justices in the middle of a trial and handing the justices a
check to halt a pending case that the Appellate Court had
decided should go to trial? This is exactly what the Senate
President, Bukola Saraki, did to temporarily halt his case at
the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) scheduled for a hearing
on November 19th, 2015.
SaharaReporters (SR) in its lead story Thursday, November
12th, 2015 stated that Justice John Fabiyi led four other
Supreme Court Justices in halting the trial of Mr. Saraki
pending the determination of Mr. Saraki's appeal before
them. According to SR, “...Toyin Sanusi, one of his [Saraki's]
aides, drove a Black Toyota Corolla car, license plate YAB
595KZ, to a meeting several times with the Supreme Court
registrar at No 17 Mandela Street in Asokoro, Abuja. It was
at this house that Mr. Saraki's agents reportedly met some
justices.”
On Friday, November 13th, SR carried a follow-up story
detailing the process by which the Supreme Court deputy
registrar helped cut a deal to halt Mr. Saraki's trial.
“SaharaReporters learned that a Deputy Registrar of the
Supreme Court, Hajio Sarki-Bello, played a key role in
facilitating a decision by a panel of justices of the apex court
to temporarily halt the corruption trial of Nigeria's Senate
President Bukola Saraki.”
SR further reports that “... Mrs. Sarki-Bello... arrange with
few ethically questionable justices to quickly hear Mr.
Saraki's case and grant him a temporary reprieve from the
ongoing trial at Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). Our sources
disclosed that the deputy registrar at the Supreme Court met
several times with Toyin Sanusi, a former aide to Governor
Ahmed Abdul Fatah of Kwara State who now works for Mr.
Saraki in Abuja, to cut the deal for the embattled senator.”
“Our source described Mrs. Sarki-Bello as extremely close to
former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Alfa Belgore, who had been
anchoring the attempts to bribe justices to halt Mr. Saraki's
trial at the CCT. Our judicial sources said Mrs. Sarki-Bello,
who hails from Niger State, was promoted from level 9 to
level 16 between 2006 and 2007 when Mr. Belgore was the
Chief Justice of Nigeria.”
The Supreme Court panel that temporarily halted Mr.
Saraki's case included Justices Suleiman Galadima, K.M.O.
Kekere-Ekun, John Inyang Okoro, and Aminu Sanusi. It is
instructive to note that Justice Fabiyi is reputed for
rendering purchased verdicts in favor of powerful
politicians. He was the judge who reversed PDP's Bode
George case after a deal was struck. He was the same judge
who declared late President Umaru Yar'Adua the winner of
the presidential elections. Yar'Adua later admitted that the
elections were rigged.
Mr. Saraki's case is a complicated corruption stature with
moving parts. With his legal options running out, Mr. Saraki
widened his shopping frenzy to buy Supreme Court justices.
Corruption in Nigeria's court will disgust and frighten you
and propel you into a world of racketeering, greed, larceny,
outrageous disdain for due process, the Rule of Law and the
Nigerian Constitution.
It is a bleak irony that the Supreme Court of a nation is
awash in “dark money.” The coming and going of Mr.
Saraki's case like Abiku has become a notorious symbol of
money and power in our judicial system which gave
corruption a central place. It's not always that Barbarians
usually bring down advanced civilizations, even epidemics of
Biblical proportions do not necessarily destroy a culture. Far
more dangerous are institutionalized corruption, a lack of
transparency, and creeping neglect of criminal laws.
Nigeria continues to be in the cesspool of corruption
because government works for only those who pay
kickbacks. Only politicians who stole our money and the
stinkingly rich Nigerians can expect upward mobility, clean
water, adequate public safety, and reliable power. In
Nigeria, tribalism and bribery determine who is hired and is
fired, who gets prosecuted and convicted, who wins or loses
a contract, who receives or goes without public services.
Nigerian people are sick of these age-old symptoms of
internal decay.
The frightening thing about the Supreme Court of Nigeria,
it's not that it is stacked with cheap biddable justices – buy
one get four free – who are willing and ready to truncate a
corruption case against the chief lawbreaker of Nigeria, but
that it assumed no one would find out, or perhaps even
mind. Ultimately, no nation can continue to thrive if its
Supreme Court refuses to enforce the laws of the land but
rather offer its justices for sale to the highest bidder.
Nigerians are angry. Why are some highly placed
lawbreakers like Mr. Saraki selectively exempted from
following the law, but ordinary Nigerians face the wrath of
the legal system? If Mr. Saraki succeeded in buying off the
Supreme Court justices, it means the justices are breaking
the law from inside. The case gives another clear example of
how injustice and arrogant corruption are tightly woven and
embedded into the fabric and body of our judicial system.
An article written by the US Supreme Court Associate Justice
Louis Brandeis published by Harper's Weekly in
1913 characterized the actions of justices like Fabiyi and his
four colleagues as “...the wickedness of people shielding
wrongdoers and passing them off (or at least allowing them
to pass themselves off) as honest men.” The one question
that kept coming to my mind as I continue to write and
observe Mr. Saraki's case was if Mr. Saraki was a poor
Nigerian would he be able to abuse the legal system for so
long and get an undeserved reprieve from the law? The
answer always returned to me as “No.”
I'm not a lawyer. I'm a journalist. But I know the Code of
Ethics in the legal profession insists that all judges who are
officers of the court and arbitrators, avoid even the
appearance of impropriety and must remain impartial. Mr.
Saraki's case continues to dominate the headlines with
appalling news stories of expanding crisis of corruption
among Nigerian judges. The deepening despair of Nigerians
about their own legal system is fueling frustration and
criticisms of the judges.
A lot has been revealed by Mr. Saraki's case that Nigeria's
legal system resembles that of a banana republic. Nigeria
judiciary has become a sink well of secret dealings sullied
with documented corruption, fake trials, and court fraud.
The Nigerian judicial corruption is a key to understanding
Nigeria's whole socioeconomic and political crisis.
Human Rights lawyer and activist Femi Falana does not
disappoint. His thoughtful and thought-provoking article on
the illegality of stay of proceedings in Saraki's case
published yesterday by SR is a solid piece that illuminates
the subject of the unending trial of Mr. Saraki. Citing the
provisions of sections 306 and 396 of the Administration of
Criminal Justice Act, 2015, Falana argues that “... the law has
abolished stay of proceedings and interlocutory appeals by
merging all preliminary objections with the substantive case
in any criminal case instituted in a federal court in the
country.”
“The evolutionary intervention of the law,” continues Falana,
“ was occasioned by the unending trial of politically exposed
persons in corruption cases.” In a penetrating and insightful
analysis citing numerous cases, Mr. Falana blames Justice
Fabiyi for the stay on Mr. Saraki's case. Listen to Mr. Falana:
“Therefore, any judge who orders a stay of proceedings in
any criminal trial does so illegally and is liable to be
sanctioned by the National Judicial Council. It is
unfathomable that the Supreme Court decided to return the
country to the status quo ante in rather brazen and bizarre
manner.”
Fabiyi's decision to stay the proceedings of Saraki's case at
the CCT is inherently dangerous to the health of our
democracy and for justice to thrive in a country badly
riddled by corruption.
In order to control things for the benefit of the rich and the
powerful like Saraki, Nigerian judges act like perverts with
regard to average Nigerians. They lie, rob, cheat, steal, and
destroy any mere Nigerian. With the expose done so far by
SR on Nigerian judges handling Saraki's case, the Nigerian
judges operate like criminal gangs. They get together to
decide which case to halt or dismiss outright.
The Supreme Court's job is to interpret the Constitution –
nothing more and nothing less. What the Supreme Court
says and does has a broad effect on the values and long
term direction of our society. The Supreme Court has a
special power to rise above corruption, bribery, mean-
spirited stereotypes. The Supreme Court should lead the
way in interpreting the Constitution and upholding justice
for the highly and the lowly, the prince and the pauper.
But “the Emperor has no clothes!” The Supreme Court has
been stripped naked by the SR investigative reports and the
illegality of its ruling brilliantly exposed by Falana. The
Supreme Court is boxed in. The nation is waiting and
watching. Let Saraki's case begin NOW!
Source:saharareporters.com/2015/11/17/saraki-shops-supreme-court-justices-justice-john-fabiyi-auction-block-buy-one-get-four

De wicked shall neva go unpunished even if he escapes de cry of the people of kwara state will hunt his generation,, quote me nd thunder go fire u

Waiting for judgement in Nigeria is like waiting for a train at the airport

Where is chukwudi?

RoChas Now working, Operation no pot holes, Imo Must BE great Again

PDP has transformed the judiciary into the last hope for common criminals!

BTW, Saraki is pdp!

Our sources
disclosed that the deputy registrar at the Supreme Court met
several times with Toyin Sanusi, a former aide to Governor
Ahmed Abdul Fatah of Kwara State who now works for Mr.
Saraki in Abuja, to cut the deal for the embattled senator.”

They met several times and saharareporters were there to monitor the transactions but forgot their cameras at home on successive days the transactions took place.