Saraki’s lawyers tackle top prosecution witness, allege ‘faulty” investigation

A witness testifying against the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, at the Code of Conduct Tribunal on Tuesday came under intense grilling as the senate president’s lawyers battled to neutralise his claims and to prove that the investigation against Mr. Saraki was faulty.

Mr. Saraki is standing trial for alleged false declaration of assets.
The witness, Michael Wetkas, who first appeared on the case on April 5, has been cross-examined for days by the defence team.
Mr. Wetkas had in his evidence before the tribunal stated that Mr. Saraki was found to have made anticipatory declarations of his assets in 2003.
The evidence, according to Mr. Wetkas, was discovered during an investigation conducted by a team he led, and verified by the Code of Conduct Bureau, as well as the Presidential Committee on Federal Government’s assets.
Mr. Wetkas told the tribunal that Mr. Saraki was later found to have purchased a property at Macdonald Ikoyi Street, after he became governor in 2003.
The evidence was marked Exhibit 1 by the chairman of the tribunal, Danladi Umar.
But during Tuesday’s cross-examination, which was led by one of Mr. Saraki’s counsels, Paul Erokoro, the defence sought to prove that the information disclosed to the public regarding the alleged anticipatory declaration of assets was untrue.


Mr. Erokoro asked Mr. Wetkas if a letter was written to the presidential committee during the said investigation which led to the discovery of the alleged anticipatory declaration of assets.
Mr. Wetkas answered that he had no evidence to that effect.
Asked if he ever visited the property at 15 McDonald Street, Mr. Wetkas answered in the negative, but said he sent one of his team members.
Mr. Wetkas was also asked if the Code of Conduct Bureau visited the property. He replied that he had no evidence to that effect.
“Did you say you have no evidence to prove that the CCB visited the address for inspection?” Mr. Erokoro queried, while the witness responded in the affirmative.
At this point, Mr. Umar, the tribunal chairman, attempted to lend his voice, saying that Mr. Wetkas meant to say something else.
But Mr. Erokoro said the chairman should not speak for the witness, especially since he had already given his answer twice.
The prosecution, Rotimi Jacobs, then objected, stressing that the questions were hypothetical, but his objection was overruled, as the witness was told by Mr. Umar to try to focus and answer the questions well.
Mr. Erokoro then stated that there were undisclosed reasons why details regarding the process of the investigations by Mr. Wetkas and his team were not included in their evidence before the tribunal.
“We will demonstrate to you or whoever is prosecuting this case today that there’s a reason why the letter is not being made available to the court,” he said.
The tribunal adjourned till Wednesday for continuation of cross examination.
Earlier, the tribunal ruled in favour of Mr. Saraki for the first time since the case began, when it allowed the defence to carry on with cross examination of the witness, by any chosen counsel, at a time.
Mr. Jacobs had objected to the repeated change of counsels questioning Mr. Wetkas, but Mr. Umar ruled that the action of the defence was well within the provisions of the law.