President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo have been asked to provide information on the summary of their assets, specifically property and income as contained in their asset declaration forms submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
In a Freedom of Information requests sent by Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to the Presidency, also captured the 36 state governors and their deputies, urging them to use their good offices to clarify within 7 days of receiving the FoI request.
According to a statement by SERAP, the FoI requests dated 3 January 2020 and signed by its deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, said: “The Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), the FoI Act, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is part of our laws, read together, impose transparency obligations on all public officials to publicly disclose information concerning their asset declarations submitted to the CCB, and to clarify any updated review of such assets.”
SERAP said: “The summary of assets to be disclosed include, where applicable, the following: savings and other liquid assets, all immovable property and shares and actions in any private and public companies; property purchased by way of tender from any public-law entities and information about businesses owned.”
The organisation said the non-public disclosure by public officials of their summary of assets seriously undermines the effectiveness and integrity of the constitutional and statutory obligations to submit asset declarations.
Specifically FoI request to President Buhari, SERAP noted his “public promise to make specific details of your assets public, and urge you to consider this FoI request as a unique opportunity to fulfill the promise made to the Nigerian people.
“We would also like you to clarify if you have encouraged members of your cabinet to also submit their asset declarations to the CCB and to make such declarations public. If so, we would like you to provide information on the details of those that have made submissions.
“We would also like you to clarify whether a declaration has been submitted as constitutionally and statutorily required, the date of any such submission and if you have received any confirmation of the verification of your asset declaration by the CCB.”
