The senate President has suffered a fresh blow in his case with the CCB as the appeal court struck out the application filed by him seeking a stay of proceeding of his trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal over allegations of corruption.
Mr. Saraki’s lead counsel, Kanu Agabi, who made the application, informed the court on Monday, April 25 of his client’s desire to withdraw the said application for stay of proceedings, but prayed the court to speed up hearing into his client’s main application.
“In the motion, dated April 4, we prayed your lordship to stay proceedings at the CCT pending the hearing of our appeal. But we now want to urge your lordship to grant accelerated hearing to our appeal,” he said.
Mr. Saraki had approached the court after the application to halt his trial at the CCT was dismissed on March 24.
Justice Abdul Aboki, who led the three-man panel, gave the ruling striking out Saraki’s application saying it would be better for them to base their application on the substantive motion which bordered on the jurisdiction of the tribunal to try the Senate president.
The court asked the parties to file and perfect all their documents to enable the parties to get a new date for a hearing.
The Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court had already decided that the tribunal has jurisdiction in the case.
The court adjourned the substantive matter to a date to be communicated to parties.