Saraki, Ekweremadu, others to be tried by 80 specially trained prosecutors

About 20 teams of prosecutors, comprising 80 lawyers, have been set up by the Federal Government to handle various high profile criminal cases investigated by law enforcement agencies, including the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Punch reports.

Report said each of the teams is made up of four lawyers with a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) as the leader - the identities of the lawyers are yet to be revealed.

It was gathered that the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, which is led by Prof. Itse Sagay and other specialists took the lawyers through special training for over one month in preparation for their new assignment.

One of the teams of prosecutors has been assigned the forgery case recently instituted against Senate President Bukola Saraki; his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, and two others, anonymous sources in the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja was said to have confirmed on Thursday, July 7.

It was learnt prosecuting team will take over the forgery case from the Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Diri, upon resumption of trial on Monday, July 11.

Confirming the development, the Special Adviser to Abubakar Malami,the Attorney General of the Federation on Media and Publicity, Mr. Salihu Isah, said cases have been assigned to six of the 20 teams.

“The prosecutors, 80 in all, are constituted into 20 teams. After they were trained, cases have been assigned to the first six and one of the cases is the Saraki’s case that you mentioned,” Isah said.

READ: Court says forgery case against Saraki is an abuse of judicial process

The Federal Government had on June 10 charged Saraki, Ekweremadu and two others with two counts of criminal conspiracy and forgery of Senate Standing Rules used for the leadership election of the presiding officers of the 8th Senate on June 4, 2015.

The two other accused person are a former Clerk to the National Assembly, Salisu Maikasuwa, and his then deputy, Benedict Efeturi.