President Muhammadu Buhari will not\u00a0 interfere in the ongoing trial of\u00a0Senate President Bukola Saraki.<\/p>\n
He will allow the court process to run its course, the President said\u00a0yesterday in New York.<\/p>\n
Saraki is facing trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) for\u00a0alleged false assets declaration. The tribunal has fixed October 21-23 to\u00a0hear the matter.<\/p>\n
Saraki\u2019s supporters are said to be pleading with emirs and other prominent\u00a0citizens to put in a word for the Senate president. But Buhari told our\u00a0correspondent in an interview that it would be an impeachable offence if\u00a0he intervened.<\/p>\n
Here are excerpts from the interview:<\/p>\n
Q: The Senate president is facing alleged false assets declaration\u00a0allegations but you\u2019ve been aloof from the case. What is your position on\u00a0the issue?<\/p>\n
A: \u201cWhat has the President got to do with it as a person? The case is in\u00a0court. Do Nigerians expect me to tell the Chief Justice to tell whichever\u00a0court that they shouldn\u2019t try the Senate president?<\/p>\n
\u201cDo Nigerians know about the constitution of their own country? The\u00a0judiciary, the legislature and the executive have got their own roles\u00a0within the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Then, how do\u00a0they expect me to interfere? I can be successfully impeached if I do it.<\/p>\n
Q: Today in Abuja, at least 82 senators passed a vote of confidence on the\u00a0Senate President. That is a significant number of senators. However,\u00a0Nigerians will like to know, as the president, how confident are you in\u00a0the senate president?<\/p>\n
A: That would depend on the outcome of the court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Q: Are you on speaking terms with the Senate president?<\/p>\n
A: There are some appointments, which the Senate has to approve. And I\u00a0can\u2019t remember how many letters I personally wrote to him, because this is\u00a0constitutional. There are people I want to work with, I cannot work with\u00a0them unless the National Assembly approves. So I\u2019ve been writing to the\u00a0Senate President and to the leader of the House (of Representatives). This\u00a0is constitutional.<\/p>\n
Q: What do you have to say on the media\u2019s review of your first three\u00a0months in office?<\/p>\n
A: \u201cThe media is too inquisitive for my liking (laughing).<\/p>\n
\u201cThey ask too many questions, and I agonise over this with my adviser on\u00a0media that especially our own press in Nigeria, why can\u2019t they do more of\u00a0investigative journalism? \u201cThere are a lot of things the media can do\u00a0without harassing the president. For example,\u00a0 my assets declaration. I\u2019ve\u00a0declared my assets four times since the first time I got a political\u00a0appointment. Why can\u2019t the press go and find out about the previous times?\u00a0Instead they\u2019re making headlines about my assets.<\/p>\n
Q: It\u2019s been circulating that you\u2019ve been recovering some of the money\u00a0stolen by corrupt Nigerians from the treasury. How true is this and how\u00a0much have you recovered?<\/p>\n
A: I can\u2019t give you figures now, because of the legal implications. It\u2019s\u00a0much easier to talk about what we\u2019re doing according to documents. For\u00a0example, every ship that is loading Nigerian crude from our terminals is\u00a0supposed to record how much it has taken and on behalf of who is lifting\u00a0it in terms of customer, including whether the crude oil belongs to the\u00a0Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation or it belongs to our partners,\u00a0like Shell, Mobil, Chevron and so on. And then we ask where are they\u00a0going? Including the facts of the documents like when it was sold and\u00a0which account the money was going. We have gone quite far and a number of\u00a0countries have cooperated with us. In fact, again we try to get more facts\u00a0from Lloyd\u2019s of London, that is the famous shipping line insurance\u00a0brokers. Because some people would take petroleum from terminals, and then\u00a0change the receipt, change its direction, and put the money into\u00a0individual accounts. So we want those documents in our hands so we can\u00a0successfully prosecute those who have been stealing Nigerian crude. We\u00a0can\u2019t mention the details because it may compromise the legal processes,\u00a0but definitely, we have done a lot of work and very soon the processes of
\nprosecution will start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Muhammadu Buhari will not\u00a0 interfere in the ongoing trial of\u00a0Senate President Bukola Saraki. He will allow the court process to run its course, the President said\u00a0yesterday in New York.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n