CCT members arrive for judgment on Onnoghen

The three members of the Code of Conduct Tribunal on Thursday arrived the courtroom 14 minutes behind the 12 pm re-scheduled time for the judgment on Justice Walter Onnoghen, the erstwhile Chief Justice of Nigeria.

Onnoghen is being tried before the CCT on charges of breaches of assets declaration as stipulated in the Code of Conduct for Public Officers.

The judgment was originally scheduled to be delivered at 9 am on Thursday.

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But as members of the tribunal were being expected to walk into the courtroom, a court official announced the postponement of the judgment till noon.

Onnoghen had arrived the premises of the tribunal at 8.40am ahead of the judgment.

His convoy departed the premises as soon as the news of the postponement reached him.

He later returned to the CCT about 25 minutes before the 12 pm re-scheduled for the judgment.

‎At 11.56pm he stepped out his vehicle and walked into the court, which was just some few metres away from where he parked.

‎Onnoghen, decked in a grey suit with a white inner shirt, tried to prove to be unruffled as he managed to put up a smiling face in the front of an array of cameras scrambling to get the best shots of him.

The CCT members led by their Chairman, Danladi Umar, arrived the courtroom at exactly 12.14pm.

The two other members are Williams Atedze and Julie Anabor.

Onnoghen reportedly resigned on April 4, he was charged with alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct for Public Officers before the CCT on January 11, 2019, as a sitting CJN.

Specifically, the Federal Government, acting through the Code of Conduct Bureau, had on January 11, filed against Onnoghen, six counts, accusing him in the first count of failure to declare his assets to the bureau between June 2005 and December 14, 2016.

In the rest of the five counts, the defendant was alleged to have falsely declared his assets on December 14, 2016, by allegedly omitting to declare his domiciliary dollar, euro and pound sterling accounts as well as his two naira accounts, all maintained with Standard Chartered Bank (Nig.) Ltd.