The Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) sitting in
Abuja, on Thursday, blamed its inability to
adjudicate on cases before it from outside Abuja on acute shortage of fund.

Mr Abdulmalik Shuaibu, the Chief Registrar of
CCT stated this in Abuja in an interview with the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

NAN reports that the tribunal had not been able
to hear cases brought before it in past two years
from outside Abuja.

Shuaibu also blamed failure of the tribunal to sit
in January and February on a scheduled trip
outside the country involving its chairman and
other government functionaries.

“It was only in June again that we could not hold
session because we had scheduled an antennary
sessions in Enugu and Akwa Ibom.

“By this, we had planned to move the tribunal
physically to other parts of the country but due
to irregular releases of fund by the government,
our activities were hampered.

“The issue of moving the tribunal from Abuja to
these states involves payment of our core staff,
judges and then fuelling and maintenance of
vehicles,” he said.

Shuaibu said that the tribunal had adopted a
strategy of hearing cases of suspects in states,
who could afford to come to Abuja.

“What we now devised to get out of this problem
of lack of finance was to scrutinise the list of
accused persons before us.

“Identify individuals, like Permanent Secretaries,
Directors and others that can afford trip to Abuja
and summon them to Abuja for trial.

“The remaining people on the list who are mainly
civil servants and councillors cannot be
classified as awaiting trials because they have
not been arraigned in the first place,” he added.

According to him, their names are only on the
list of defaulters sent to the tribunal by the
bureau which involve either failure to submit or
late submission of assets declaration forms.

He said that the core mandate of the tribunal
was to take justice closer to the people through
antennary sessions in different parts of the
country.

Shuaibu, however, noted that the session would
resume as soon as funds were made available to
the tribunal.

(NAN)