The Transition Monitoring Group has described the Senate as morally challenged and bereft of integrity for maintaining what it called a criminal silence in the face of the prosecution of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, for corruption.

The TMG attributed the silence of the senators to the fear that the anti-corruption search-light would soon be beamed on them.

The TMG Chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, in a statement on Friday in Abuja, observed that the lurid details that emerged so far about how money belonging to the people of Kwara State were allegedly pilfered or diverted to Saraki's personal accounts, reminded Nigerians about the urgent need to stamp out elite corruption.

"In just two days of trial, the dirty secrets that have emerged are startling," Zikirullahi said.

He said, "Before the very eyes of the people of Kwara and by extension Nigeria, we are seeing how the criminal alliance between Saraki and his current minion in the Kwara State Government House resulted in the continued payment of Saraki's salary as governor, four years after he ceased to occupy office as governor.

As if what has been coming out of the Code of Conduct Tribunal is just a tip of the iceberg, Saraki's name again showed up prominently on the infamous global list of tax dodgers and those hiding suspicious assets in offshore havens as revealed in the leaked Panama Papers.

"It stands in stark contrast that while the Prime Minister of Iceland who was mentioned in the Panama leaks has since resigned, Saraki and his fellow primitive accumulators in the Senate are waiting for the Nigerian people to forget and move on."

The activist noted that the looted money could have paid the salaries of teachers, doctors and other workers in Kwara State, adding that the funds could have built schools, hospitals, roads and provide education for the children of the ordinary man and woman in the state.

"While it is tragic that Saraki and his co-travellers have short -changed the people of Kwara and set them back in their quest for good governance, the bigger tragedy is the criminal silence in the Senate," he said.

Zikirullahi added, "Though it is well known that the Senate as an institution has remained morally challenged, and bereft of integrity over the years, whatever modicum of regard Nigerians have for this institution is about to be thrown away by the complicity of the insensitive lawmakers supporting Saraki."

Meanwhile, Special Adviser to the Senate President on Media and Publicity, Alhaji Yusuph Olaniyonu, on Friday said, "The TMG are sponsored by politicians whose candidate lost out in the Senate Presidency election.

"They represent nobody but themselves and their sponsors. They cant circumvent the judicial process. They should wait until the case is decided by all the judicial architecture".