Senate Forgery: Saraki, Others’ Trial In Order – Court Rules

A Federal High Court in Abuja has rejected an ex-parte motion for injunction to restrain the Attorney General of the Federation and IG of Police from going ahead with the prosecution of Bukola Saraki, his deputy Ike Ekweremadu and 2 others on charges of forgery of the Senate Standing Orders 2011.

The applicant for the injunction, Senator Gilbert Nnaji, had urged the court to stop the defendants from acting on the police report issued with respect to the case.

But Justice Gabriel Kolawole rejected the motion.

The judge had ruled: “In terms of the restraining orders, which the plaintiff seeks in the prayer one of his motion ex-parte, I am unable to grant the prayers because the plaintiff has not been able to overcome the issue of his locus standing, which I had raised at the proceedings of 27 July, 2015.

“It is not sufficient, when the Supreme Court’s decision in Senator Abaraham Adesanya v. President of Nigeria & another (1981) 5 SC 112 is applied, for the plaintiff, who has not shown that he is one of the defendants listed in the criminal charge attached as Exhibit B to this motion ex-parte, to be conferred, in the context of the provision of Section 6(6)(b) of the Constitution 999 (as amended) with the cloak of an ‘aggrieved’ person who ought to be granted access to ventilate his grievance and to seek the interim orders in his motion ex-parte.”