Buhari directs all aides, officials to declare assets

The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Friday, in Abuja, directed all outgoing elected and appointed government officials under him to declare their assets.

“Nobody is excluded from declaring their assets. I expect everyone from the Vice President downwards to follow the system,” Buhari said when he received his assets declaration form from the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau, Prof. Isah Mohammed, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, disclosed this in a statement he signed on Friday titled ‘President Buhari receives assets declaration form, directs all outgoing officials to do the same.’

Buhari said his strict adherence to the constitutional requirement of assets declaration before and after taking office is to strengthen best practices, raise moral standards in Public Service, help to build integrity and combat corruption.

Therefore, he directed all outgoing officials, elected and appointed from the Vice President downwards must collect the assets declaration form, fill and return it as he has done.

He said “I signed, collected and acknowledged receiving my form. From here, I will ask my bank Manager in Kaduna to show me what has gone in and out of my account.

“Nobody is excluded from declaring their assets. I expected everyone from the Vice President downwards to follow the system.”

CCB Boss, Prof. Mohammed, said compliance by the President in the last eight years and the support he had given to the Bureau had enabled it to achieve 99 per cent compliance by elected and appointed officials.

Buhari also acknowledged the support of the President in the achievement of the digitization of its services and operations thereby helping the organisation to open investigation of cases with greater efficiency.

The asset declaration form is a schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) and is mandatory for all elected, appointed, recruited and contracted Public Officers.

Declarants are required by Law to state their assets/liability including that of their spouses who is not Public Officer and children under 18 years of age and submit the same to the Bureau within 30 days of the receipt of the forms.

The president-elect, Bola Tinubu, the vice president-elect, Kashim Shettima and 28 incoming governors and their cabinet members as well as the state assembly members are also expected to submit their assets forms to the CCB.

According to guidelines published on the CCB website, “Failure to declare the assets may result in removal from office; vacation of the official seat in any legislative house, as the case may be; imposition of fine; disqualification from membership of a legislative house and from holding of any public office for a period not exceeding 10 years and seizure and forfeiture of any property acquired in abuse or corruption of office.”