FALANA DON YARN BUHARI TO DECLARE HIM ASSETS NOW AND PRONOW.

A human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, SAN, don yarn say make President Muhammadu Buhari and him Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to publicly declare dem current assets.



Make una no forget say SERAP been don arn say make Buhari, Osinbajo, and 36 state governors and dem deputies publicly declare any updates of their asset declarations wey dem been submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau.

Falana, been don condemn the yarnings of Adeshina wey be spoke person to the Presidency say the president no need to declare him assets as no rule dey to make am declare him assets for public.
Falana yarn say, “The Presidency has claimed that there is no law in Nigeria mandating President Buhari to declare his assets publicly. With due respect, this cannot be the correct position of our law.
“As far as the law is concerned, the word ‘declaration’ means ‘a formal statement, proclamation, or announcement, especially embodied in an instrument.’“The combined effect of the Constitution, FoI Act and the African Charter is that all public officials ought to voluntarily announce publicly their asset declarations even without prompting from civil society groups like SERAP.“In the alternative, the Code of Conduct Bureau is bound by law to make them available to members of the public, pursuant to section 1 of the FoI Act.“In fact, the law contemplated by the Constitution to make asset declarations of public officials public is the FoI Act. With the FoI Act, there is no longer secrecy in government, including in the asset declarations made by all public officials.“Even private citizens can no longer insist on secrecy as they are now required by official policies to register their biometric data for the purpose of acquiring international passports, telephone lines and opening of bank accounts.
“The Bank Verification Number commonly called BVN – a biometric identification system implemented by the Buhari administration–has ended secrecy of bank accounts, thereby curbing illegal banking transactions in Nigeria.“I, therefore, urge President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo to show strong leadership by immediately acceding to the FoI requests by SERAP and publicly announce any updates on their asset declarations already made public in 2015.
“This will end the secrecy that continues to surround asset declarations in Nigeria. The secrecy has over the years been used to hide corruptly stolen assets, which has continued to cause untold misery for millions of Nigerians.”