On Friday, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cleared the lawyers of Senate President Bukola Saraki of any wrongdoing following their walkout during the hearing of Mr. Saraki’s false declaration of assets trial.
On Friday, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cleared the lawyers of Senate President Bukola Saraki of any wrongdoing following their walkout during the hearing of Mr. Saraki’s false declaration of assets trial.
On Thursday, three Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) Saka Issau, Ahmed Raji and Mahmud Magaji lead 23 other junior advocates in a walkout in response to the Code of Conduct Tribunal’s (CCT) decision to continue Mr. Saraki’s hearing despite the pending appeal against the continuation of the case currently being heard at the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court scheduled the hearing of the Senate President’s application for a stay of proceedings for November 12th.
It will be recalled that SaharaReporters reported that Mr. Saraki’s lawyers condemned the tribunal of “judicial rascality”.
In an interview with Punch Newspaper the President of the NBA, Augustine Alegeh, stated that the organization was satisfied with the response Mr. Saraki’s lawyers provided to the NBA. According to Mr. Alegeh the lawyers did not conduct a walkout per se as they left the court before taking their leave of the tribunal.
The NBA President also noted that his organization did not receive any formal letter of complaint from the tribunal judges. However, he encouraged the tribunal to contact the NBA formally if they felt the lawyer’s actions were improper.
Mr. Alegeh stressed the neutrality of the NBA stating, “the NBA owes a duty to the tribunal members who we have the duty to protect and to the senior advocates and to the entire bar. We won’t take side with one against the other.”