The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has on Saturday 29th August, 2020, launched a latest report against the ceaseless denial of assets declaration details of public officials in Nigeria.
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The report which is titled: “Citizens’ Guide to Asset Declarations by Public Officers in Nigeria” was launched at a virtual event organised by SERAP in collaboration with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, OSIWA.
At the virtual event were stakeholders in the fight against corruption, including citizens, civil society organizations, the media, lawyers, ministries, agencies and departments (MDAs), anti-corruption agencies, Code of Conduct Bureau Officers and other major actors in these sectors.
According to professor of Law, Yemi Akinseye-George, SAN, during his presentation on the webinar’s subject: “No Escape For The Corrupt: Lifting The Lid On Asset Declaration In Nigeria”, the objective of the launched Guide is to facilitate the Strengthening of the operational capacity of public officers, government functionaries and institutions involved in the implementation and daily management of asset and income disclosure systems in Nigeria and to inform the legal and policy discourses around these issues through a good practice manual and other tools
He noted that making asset declaration open to public scrutiny enables citizens to hold leaders accountable
“Overwhelming empirical research studies have proven that an asset declaration open to public scrutiny as a way for citizens to ensure leaders do not abuse their powers for personal gain and publication of information on a person’s asset allows civil society to hold leaders to account. If leaders are seen to live beyond their means, an asset declaration can be a starting point for investigations.”
On why Nigerian assets declaration system is not effective, he mentioned “Non-compliance by most public officials, lack of transparent follow-up and verification of declared assets, persistent reluctance of the custodian of the CCB to publish the records for public scrutiny, non-verification of most assets declaration forms have been been left unverified by the regulatory body.”
The learned silk cited laws like the Nigerian constitution, Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, United Nation’s Convention Against Corruption, Freedom of Information Act, and many others and argued that if the laws are juxtaposed with historical narrative of public sector corruption, the conclusion is that assets declarations are not just to be submitted “but the custodian of the submission shall make them available to citizens of Nigeria for purposes of transparency, verification and accountability.”
Akinseye-George, SAN urged the CCB to make it compulsory for all public officials to declare their assets and liabilities, verify any any account when there are doubts or only for positions with high risk of conflict of interest, view the organized civil society and journalists as partners in enthroning transparency and accountability in Nigeria rather than antagonize their efforts. He also recommends deployment of information technology in the assets declaration filing and verification and linking the information from other government agencies and other private organizations and granting reasonable requests for the disclosure assets and liabilities declared by public officials.
Click on the link below to download a copy of the SERAP Report
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