Lawyers to Toyin Saraki, the wife of the embattled Nigerian Senate president, Bukola Saraki, have said the controversial hidden assets the politician failed to disclose, tucked away in secret offshore tax havens, belong solely to Mrs. Saraki, and not her family estate.

A trove of internal data from the Panama-based offshore-provider, Mossack Fonseca, obtained by the German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) with PREMIUM TIMES and over 100 other media partners in 82 countries, revealed that the properties were part of the assets belonging to the Senate President’s immediate family.

A PREMIUM TIMES investigation on Monday exposed Mr. Saraki as having failed to declare the assets among those filed with the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), as required by Nigerian laws.
The CCB slammed false asset declaration charges on Mr. Saraki, accusing the Senate President, among other things, of failure to declare his assets in full.

Under the code of conduct law, a public office holder is required to declare his own assets, those of his wife as well as assets in the names of his children below the age of 18.