Senate President Bukola Saraki

Senate President Bukola Saraki seemed to be in fresh trouble even as his trial by the Code of Conduct Tribunal on charges of false assets declaration is set to resume on Monday.

The bigger trouble for the Nigerian Senate President is in London where Transparency International UK has listed two London houses linked to him for investigation under Britain’s new law, Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWO), which became effective from 31 January.

Land Registry documents show that the houses at 7 and 8 Whittaker Street, Belgravia, London are owned by Landfield International Developments Limited and Renocon Property Development Limited with a combined worth of about £15 million.

Information contained in Panama Papers about two years ago had indicated that the companies were controlled by Toyin,  wife of the President of the Nigerian Senate, and one of his personal aides.

However, the Senate President did not declare the ownership of the assets in the official asset declarations he made when he was first elected as governor of Kwara State in 2003 and thereafter.

TI said previous public disclosures by Saraki have indicated he has high levels of unexplained wealth.

In 2003, his asset declaration showed he had amassed tens of millions of pounds worth of assets during his time as director of Société Générale Bank and Special Assistant to the President on Budget.

Saraki is not the only top foreign government officials that is under the searchlight with the coming into force of the new UK law.

Also listed for probe by Transparency International was a £18m property at Kenwood Gate, Hampstead, owned by the First Family of Azerbaijan, Flats 138A and 138B at 4 Whitehall Court, London, linked with Igor Shuvalov, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister.

The flats are valued at £11.4million.

A £1m property in Guildford linked with Ahmed Mahmoud Azwai, former Libyan Major General and two apartments at Park Lane, said to be owned by former Pakistani prime minister, Nawaz Sharif are also under investigation.

UWOs are a new investigative power designed to help law enforcement act on corrupt assets which according to TI are particularly useful where there is no realistic prospect of cooperation or conviction in the country of origin, but there are sufficient grounds for suspicion that an asset has been acquired with the proceeds of corruption.

The UWO requires the respondent to explain how he lawfully acquired his assets. If he fails to respond or gives an inadequate response then this extra information can be used in a separate civil recovery process (an existing measure under the Proceeds of Crime Act) if law enforcement has gathered sufficient evidence.

The U.K. estimates that around £90 billion ($127 billion, 102 billion euros) of illegal funds are laundered through Britain every year and this includes money stolen from the Nigerian treasury.

Now officials will use the new unexplained wealth orders (UWOs), which came into effect this week, to seize suspicious assets and hold them until they have been properly accounted for, Ben Wallace, Security and Economic Crime Minister told The Times newspaper on Saturday.