Embattled Senate President Bukola Saraki on friday
said he would not yield to growing calls from
Nigerians that he should step down amid growing
corruption scandals.
Mr. Saraki said those calling for his resignation were
being sponsored by politicians who had always
opposed his leadership since he emerged Senate
President last June, He added that his detractors
were trying to circumvent the country’s judicial
system.
Mr. Saraki was responding to a story published by
PREMIUM TIMES earlier today, in which the
Transition Monitoring Group lend its voice to a
growing call for the Senate President’s ouster.
In a text message sent to our reporter by his Special
Adviser on Media, Yusuph Olaniyonu, Mr. Saraki
said he was not contemplating resignation.
“There’s a case in the Tribunal and a resultant
appeal at the Court of Appeal,” the statement said.
“The underlining philosophy of our legal system is
that an accused person is presumed innocent until
found guilty.”
“Those who are contemplating calls for resignation
want to circumvent the judicial system. They are
obviously being sponsored by some politicians.
“The Senate President is not contemplating any
resignation. He will surely have his day in court.”
Foramfera
Since Mr. Saraki was arraigned by the Code of
Conduct Tribunal and the PREMIUM TIMES expose
about his secret offshore assets in tax havens, the
calls for him to step down has continued to mount.
On Thursday, several activists and other Nigerians
openly called on the Senate President to resign.
They were joined today by the TMG.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported on Monday that Mr.
Saraki failed to disclose four assets found to be in
his wife’s name offshore, in violation of Nigeria’s
code of conduct law.
That revelation came to light following the leak of a
trove of internal data from the Panama-based
offshore-provider, Mossack Fonseca, obtained by
the German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and
shared by the International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with PREMIUM TIMES
and over 100 other media partners in 82 countries.
In his response to that publication, Mr. Saraki said
the controversial assets belonged to the estate of his
wife’s rich and famous family, and that the law did
not mandate him to declare such a category of
assets.
But PREMIUM TIMES later found that the assets
neither belong to Toyin, his wife, nor to her family’s
estate. They are clearly Mr. Saraki’s.
According to the new documents retrieved by
PREMIUM TIMES from the massive Mossack
Fonseca database, the assets in Toyin’s name are
actually held in trust for Mr. Saraki, Nigeria’s third
most powerful official.