PUBLIC DECLARATION OF ASSETS
AMONG other topical issues on which President Goodluck Jonathan answered questions during the presidential media chat of Sunday June 24, 2012, was the usually–contentious question of declaration of assets by public office holders. To him, it was not an issue and his reason was that he declared his assets publicly as Vice-President only two years before he became president. “The issue of public declaration (of assets) I think is playing to the gallery. You don’t need to publicly declare any asset…I don’t give a damn about it, if you want to criticise me from here to heaven,” he said. Jonathan told his interviewers that he counselled the late President Umaru Yar’ Adua against the idea because they (he and Yar’Adua) could be playing into some people’s hands by so doing . He further said that he publicly declared his assets while serving under Yar’ Adua not because he wanted to do it but because it was becoming an issue after his boss had publicly done so.
THERE have, as expected, been reactions to the President’s views from various quarters. The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) sees Jonathan’s position as an evidence of his administration’s lack of commitment to the crusade against corruption . The party holds the view that the president’s display of aversion to a public declaration of assets has given the green light to his cabinet members and other government officials to downplay the fight against corruption and eschew transparency. Another opposition party, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has equally criticised the president’s position on the issue.
THE establishment of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the anti-corruption agencies was informed by a fervent desire to check all forms of abuse in public office. The CCB in particular has been put in place to serve as a constant reminder to public office holders that they could be called upon to explain the sources of their wealth or belongings after their period of service. It is unfortunate that the bureau has glaring inadequacies which have seriously vitiated its capacity to serve the purpose for which it was established. It is apparent that there are problems with both the enabling law and its mode of operation. While individuals or groups can take exception to the manner in which the president expressed his disapproval of public declaration of assets, the fact remains that he is squarely within the ambit of the law. In this particular situation, what should be of utmost concern and a subject of public debate is the law that created the CCB and its mode of operation.
THE CCB is widely perceived as an ineffectual organisation which has not made any noticeable impact in checking abuses by people entrusted with positions of responsibility. There have always been reports about public office holders who failed to declare their assets either on their assumption of office or at the end of their period of service. There have also been reports about others who in other ways, ran foul of the law setting up the bureau. What the public is yet to know are the sanctions against such violators. The weaknesses in the existing structures of the bureau have made it impossible for it to function in response to needs of the country. There is thus an urgent need to strengthen the organisation in every material particular so that it can effectively fulfil the purpose it is meant to serve.
NOT a few Nigerians must have been astounded when one of the former Chairmen of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) spoke about what he called “anticipatory declaration of assets” in which criminally-minded public office holders declare what they do not have on assumption of office. By so doing, such people have been putting what they hope to acquire by fair and foul means on their list of assets at their point of entry into public office. The number of people who have got away with property acquired through such criminal ingenuity can only be a matter for conjecture. The CCB has on its part been accepting such fraudulent declarations as the gospel truth. Our expectation is that claims on assets declaration forms should be quietly and diligently verified. There should in addition be an insistence on evidence of tax payment on assets claimed on declaration forms. Established cases of false declaration should lead to an immediate end to the official’s career and the beginning of a new life behind bars.
THERE are many dimensions to the war against corruption and a code of conduct for public office holders is one of such dimensions. One major objective of the Freedom of Information Law championed by civil society organisations, the media and some professional associations is to check corruption. There is now the need for them to coalesce again in fighting for a conscientiously reworked code of conduct that will make public assets declaration mandatory and ensure that violators are condignly punished. The law that is currently in force simply requires that assets be declared. The element of compulsion is not part of it. Whoever chooses to make his\her assets declaration public under the present law is doing so voluntarily. That the rampant corruption in Nigeria is responsible for the pervasive poverty and state of anomie cannot be a subject of debate. It is therefore necessary for all well-meaning groups, associations and individuals to come together again to push for a strengthened Code of Conduct Bureau that will contribute its own quota to the efforts to kill corruption before it kills Nigeria.
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