The moral imperative of declaring assets publicly

Chapter VI Section 140 of the Constitution stipulates that ‘a person elected to the office of President shall not begin to perform the functions of that office until he has declared his assets and liabilities’. The CCB issued a statement to acknowledge receipt of the documents. Since then, there has been some dispute over whether […]

Chapter VI Section 140 of the Constitution stipulates that ‘a person elected to the office of President shall not begin to perform the functions of that office until he has declared his assets and liabilities’. The CCB issued a statement to acknowledge receipt of the documents.
Since then, there has been some dispute over whether the development met with Buhari’s pre-election pledge to make such declaration of assets ‘public’.   The CCB said it lacked powers to make them public, “for now”;  and its Chairman, Mr Sam Sada, said only the National Assembly could decide the terms and conditions under which such documents could be made public.
“While the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Tribunal Act gives the Bureau powers to receive asset declarations, verify, examine, keep in custody and enforce compliance when there is a breach, the responsibility of determining how and on what terms asset declarations will be made accessible to the public was left to the National Assembly”, he said.
The widespread negative backlash, much it of course fuelled by political opponents, was too much to ignore. The president’s spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, issued a statement assuring the nation that a verification exercise by the Bureau was ongoing to authenticate the content of the declarations, and that when this was concluded within the required 100 days, they would be released to the public.
The president may have found himself stumped by the provisions of the law, which limited his action in speedily fulfilling his electoral promise. The late Umar Musa Yar’adua was the first Nigerian president to publicly declare his assets, one month after taking office. The vice president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan, refused to follow his boss’s example; when he eventually assumed the presidency after Yaradua’s death, the issue dogged him for several months until one day, in exasperation, he bemoaned the pressure, declaring he was not obliged to declare his assets publicly, and didn’t ‘give a damn’ what members of the public thought. He was on solid legal ground.
 In Buhari’s case however, he made such declaration a cardinal campaign rallying point; it behoves him therefore to go beyond legalese and satisfy the public’s eagerness to see him match his words with action. He should also encourage other political appointees in his administration to do the same.
Of course, there may not be anything new that the public does not already know regarding the president’s austere and frugal lifestyle, and people may already have some idea of what his declaration might contain. Some of it has been seen in the occasional snapshots of his house in Kaduna and another house and livestock in his native Daura, in Katsina State. The public’s natural curiosity regarding what the declarations may or not contain is the burden every leader must understand and bear.   On the other hand, the public also needs to be patient and see reason that the constitutional requirements are not breached in the rush to meet expectations regarding the early release of such documents. However, it should not require the involvement of the National Assembly to make a decision on this. 
It is vital that the president and the vice president make their asset declaration public; only then would they be in the moral position to ask all other public officers serving in the administration to declare theirs too. Moreover, such gauges are important in measuring levels of corruption in government business in order to check it, a flagship programme of the administration.
Buhari should avoid falling into the same trap like others before him. They came on a platform to declare their assets and fight corruption, only to turn their back on the pledges as soon as they take office. This time around, the “Change” that was promised should be the change that Nigerians get.