Embattled Senate President Bukola Saraki, who
is facing prosecution before the Code of Conduct
Tribunal (CCT), last week decided to change his
legal team, bringing in a former Attorney General
of Nigeria, Kanu Agabi, to lead his defense team.
The move came as a surprise to many legal
observers who have monitored the dramatic
twists of the trial, marked especially by Mr.
Saraki’s efforts to use behind-the-scene political
and judicial deals to thwart the corruption case
against him.

The Senate President began to wax confident
just before and after bringing in Mr. Agabi as to
anchor his new defense team. At a recent Social
Media Week in Lagos, he openly declared that
the case against him would go nowhere,
portraying himself as the victim of a political
witch-hunt. Also, last week, he assured a
gathering of his political supporters in Ilorin, the
capital of his home state of Kwara State, that he
had found a solution to the case.

Two knowledgeable sources, one of them a
lawyer, the other a political associate of Mr.
Saraki’s, told SaharaReporters that Mr. Saraki’s
recruitment of Mr. Agabi was a major coup and a
key reason for the senator’s new-found
confidence.

One of the sources disclosed that Senator
Saraki’s choice of a new legal team was a
strategic masterstroke, explaining that Mr. Agabi
was brought in as the best person to reach out
to two key players in the case against the
senator, namely, the Chairman of the Code of
Conduct Tribunal, Danlami Umar, and the
prosecutor in the case, Rotimi Jacobs.

According to the source, the CCT chair was once
a close associate of Mr. Agabi. From 1999 to
2001, Mr. Umar worked at Mr. Agabi’s law
chambers in Calabar, the capital of Cross River
State, before transferring to the Federal Ministry
of Justice shortly after Mr. Agabi became
Nigeria’s Attorney General under President
Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999-2003. Mr.
Obasanjo did not re-appoint Mr. Agabi as
Attorney General when he was re-elected in
2003.

One of our sources asserted that the accelerated
promotion that Mr. Umar enjoyed in his career
was partly due to Mr. Agabi’s support and
mentorship.
Mr. Agabi also has solid professional and
personal ties to Mr. Rotimi Jacobs, the
prosecutor handling Senator Saraki’s case. Mr.
Jacobs cut his legal teeth at the chambers of
the late Gani Fawehinmi before Mr. Agabi
brought him to Abuja where he served as a
Special Assistant to Nigeria’s Attorney General.

The source disclosed that it was through Mr.
Agabi that Mr. Jacobs met Nuhu Ribadu, the
pioneer chairman of the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC). Shortly after former
President Obasanjo failed to re-appoint Mr. Agabi
as Attorney General, Mr. Ribadu drafted Mr.
Jacobs and a few other lawyers to form a core
team of EFCC prosecutors. Our source disclosed
that Mr. Jacobs declined to accept a permanent
appointment with the EFCC, stating he preferred
to work with the anti-graft agency as needed.
A political associate of Mr. Saraki’s said the
senator and his strategists found out that Mr.
Agabi was the senator’s best bet for direct
access to both Mr. Umar and Mr. Jacobs in order
to ensure that the Code of Conduct trial ends
with a no-guilty verdict.

SaharaReporters learned that Mr. Jacobs had
been straining under tremendous pressure even
before Senator Saraki hired Mr. Agabi to lead his
defense. He has reportedly received death
threats. Senator Saraki has also used the
traditional ruler of Mr. Jacobs’ town to pressure
the lawyer. Last week, Mr. Jacobs had to move
his mother from his hometown in Kwara State
after he received threats that the elderly woman
would be kidnapped unless he softened his
prosecutorial posture against Mr. Saraki.

Before Mr. Saraki brought in Mr. Agabi, his
former legal team, led by former Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA) President, Joseph Daudu, had
planned to walk out on Justice Umar when the
case resumes on March 10, 2016. But as soon
as Mr. Agabi took over, he reached out to
Justice Umar and persuaded him to change the
trial date by one day to March 11.
The source disclosed that the core of Mr.
Saraki’s defense strategy is to plead that several
of the assets named in the charges against him
belonged to other family members, including his
grandfather who died in Cote D’Ivoire many years
ago.

One source disclosed that Mr. Agabi’s first
priority was to stop Mr. Jacobs from filing fresh
charges related to a discovery that Mr. Saraki
continued to draw his full salary and entitlements
from Kwara State several years after he ceased
being the governor of the state.

young man op, there is something called paragraph and itz not for fun!

besides, where is your source

No sauce? This concussion rice is not tasty jere

*spits on thread* *walks out*

Food well cooked but no stew outside mentioning sharareporter in your write-up nothing again to lay hands on to verify this.

atleast u hv gone to sch @op u tinkz like ur father's child bt sometimes thought can be very deceptive. add ur source jare. oh I 4got sahara reporters.?

So the summary of this tale is that Saraki really has no defence to the allegations, but he's hoping to weaken and corrupt the prosecutor and the tribunal chairman, using an old and limping SAN who happened to be their mentor?

Saraki was truly schooled in the art of the mafia.

Such a corrupt soul is a cancer to any society where they draw breath.

HARDDON:
young man op, there is something called paragraph and itz not for fun!

besides, where is your source

You ought to have read between the lines.

lurex2rhyme:
atleast u hv gone to sch @op u tinkz like ur father's child bt sometimes thought can be very deceptive. add ur source jare. oh I 4got sahara reporters.?

Just hear yourself

nnachukz:
Food well cooked but no stew outside mentioning sharareporter in your write-up nothing again to lay hands on to verify this.

Eyaaa!

This 1999 sef.

Saraki is a dogged fighter, but he's losing this one.

why not change your id to caseful so you can appear more convincing?

StOla:
So the summary of this tale is that Saraki really has no defence to the allegations, but he's hoping to weaken and corrupt the prosecutor and the tribunal chairman, using an old and limping SAN who happened to be their mentor?

Saraki was truly schooled in the art of the mafia.

Such a corrupt soul is a cancer to any society where they draw breath.

Some people can lie, and think that the falsehood can engender any form of confidence.