FORMER President Muhammadu Buhari’s assets did not increase through out the eight years he spent in office, Garba Shehu, his spokesman, has said.
Shehu said this could be seen in the assets declaration form he submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
According to Shehu, the completed declaration showed that Buhari’s movable assets did not increase, at home in Nigeria or outside and he did not add new bank accounts outside the only one he had in Union Bank, Kaduna.
“He has taken no loans and has no liability. The number of animals in his farm recorded a little decrease due to the number he gave out as gifts in the last four years,” Shehu said in a tweet on Saturday.
The asset declaration form is mandatory for all elected, appointed, recruited and contracted public officers.
All public officers are to declare their assets and liabilities on the assumption of office and at the end of their tenure.
Declarants are required by law to state their assets/liability including that of their spouses who is not a public officer and children under 18 years of age and submit same to the bureau within 30 days of the receipt of the forms.
However, some public officers do not disclose their declared assets.
The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to declare his assets in accordance with Paragraph 11 of Part I of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution and make it public as a way of committing to the genuine fresh beginning he promised Nigerians.
The AFRICMIL Coordinator, Dr. Chido Onumah, said on Wednesday in a statement that declaring his assets and making it public would place President Tinubu on a much higher moral pedestal than his predecessors who were not on record to have taken any significant action regarding this constitutional obligation.
“Besides the moral capital that accompanies such a rare gesture, Mr. Tinubu would be seen to have reinforced belief in the ‘Renewed Hope’ agenda on which his governance plan is anchored, and which was the mantra at every turn in his campaign trail.
“The anti-corruption agenda of the Tinubu administration remains vague even though in his inaugural speech President Tinubu said his administration would ‘take proactive steps such as championing a credit culture to discourage corruption while strengthening the effectiveness and efficiency of the various anti-corruption agencies’
“AFRICMIL looks forward to a more detailed and unambiguous anti-corruption programme and is ready to work with the Tinubu administration to tame the vicious monster of corruption currently ravaging the country,” Onumah said.
