The Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), Danladi Umar, has been dragged to a Federal High Court in Abuja over alleged corruption matters.
An NGO , the registered Trustees of the Mission for Peace and Development Initiative, filed the suit in Abuja seeking an order of the court for the removal of Justice Danlami Umar as chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Its counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), who filed the suit on behalf of the NGO at weekend, is asking the court for an order barring Justice Umar from sitting in the trial of any Nigerian, having himself confessed to corruption, and admitted meeting with an accused person standing trial before him, in the absence of the prosecution and court officials.
Joined as defendants in the suit are the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC), the Code of Conduct Tribunal, and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).
The plaintiff is asking the court to order the Tribunal to halt further sittings against accused persons brought before it, or currently standing trial before it until it is reconstituted to exclude its present Chairman.
The NGO is further seeking order of the court directing the EFCC to commence the immediate prosecution of Justice Umar, having investigated him and found him culpable of the offences of conspiracy, bribery, abuse of office and money laundering, which the Commission had actually prepared a charge, but failed, refused to file same till date for inexplicable reasons.
The plaintiff also wants an order that the AGF should cease from further regarding or according recognition to Justice Umar as the rightful chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Ogah Columba, a human rights activists, in a 9 paragraph affidavit deposed to in the federal high court averred that in spite of the corruption cases hanging on the neck of Justice Umar, he could still sit, morally and legally to try any Nigerian citizen for any case of corruption,
“That in consonance with the anti-corruption stance of the present government, we decided to dig into the ugly, murky cases of corruption against the 1st Respondent (Justice Umar) and we are shocked at a grand cover up by powers-that-be who refused to prosecute him for receiving, N1.8 million bribe out of N10 million he demanded from an accused he was trying in his Tribunal, not withstanding the clear instructions of the then AGF, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) that he should be prosecuted”, the affidavit stated.
The affidavit claimed further that EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, had on June 24, 2014 written then AGF, stating that agency sufficient evidence, even if circumstantial, that Umar collected money from an accused person, Rasheed A. Taiwo through his P. A, one Abdullahi, and that there was an attempt to cover up judicial corruption.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
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