Head of Nigeria’s anti-corruption court charged with bribery

Nigeria's top judge handling corruption cases against public officials has himself been charged with bribery, court papers showed Saturday.

Danladi Umar was accused by the country's anti-graft body EFCC of demanding 10 million naira (22,300 euros; $27,800) from a suspect "for a favour to be afterwards shown to him in relation to the pending charge", according to court papers seen by AFP.

The embattled judge was also alleged to have received in 2012, through his personal assistant, the sum of 1.8 million naira from the same accused "in connection with the pending case before him", the papers revealed.


Umar, who chairs the Code of Conduct tribunal, last year cleared Senate president Bukola Saraki of corruption charges linked to his time as a state governor.


The bribery allegations against Umar were first brought to the fore when Saraki was charged with corruption linked to false asset declaration and money laundering as governor of his central Kwara state between 2003 and 2011.