Prominent lawyers have called for an amendment of the Code of Conduct Act to include a provision that will compel public officers who declared their assets to make it available for public scrutiny.
?The lawyers: Prof Taiwo Osipitan (SAN), Mrs. Funke Adekoya (SAN), Mr. Yusuf Ali (SAN), Prof. Fidelis Oditah (SAN) (QC), Mr. Femi Falana and Mr. Fred Agbaje also insisted that there was the urgent need to amend the declaration Act to compel public officers to declare their assets publicly if the country must make any headway in the fight against corruption.
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The call came on the heels of reports that some governors who recently declared their assets with the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB, declined to make it available to the public on the grounds that the Act did not mandate them to make their declaration public.
This provision of the CCB Act seems to go contrary to the recently enacted Freedom of Information FOI Act which makes access to information mandatory.
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Contrary to the provisions of the (FoI) Act, the CCB maintained that journalists or other members of the public may not have access to details of assets declared by governors or other public office holders on the grounds that the document still contains personal information.
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The secretary of the CCB, Alhaji Alhassan Ibrahim, made this disclosure yesterday in a chat with LEADERSHIPSUNDAY in his Abuja office. He added that the bureau would need judicial interpretation to be able to decide whether to present value of asset declared by public office holders to any member of the public or not.
He said, “The same FOI Act also exempted public institutions from giving out personal information. Much of the information we have on the asset declaration form is personal and of course, assets belonging to the wife or husband of the public office holder, which is third party is also protected by the FOI law from being given to the public. Anyone may apply for information on asset declaration, but we need our legal department’s approval to give out such information.”
Section 15 (2) and section 16 (1) of the Freedom of Information Act (Amended) 2011 provide that a public institution shall deny an application for information that contains personal information and trade secrets and commercial or financial information, where disclosure of such secrets may cause harm to the interest of the third party.
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But section 16 (4), provides that a public institution shall disclose any information if that disclosure would be in the public interest or if public interest in the disclosure clearly outweighs in importance, any financial loss or gain the contractual or other negotiation of the third party.
Osipitan also affirmed that the law as it stands, did not compel any public officer who declares his assets to make it public. He pointed out that due to the alarming incidence of corruption among public servants, there was need to amend the Act.
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He said, “No law says you must make your declaration public for now. There will be need to amend that law”.
Adekoya also called for the amendment of the Act, saying that with the FoI Act, every Nigerian could have access to details of assets declared by public officers.
Ali also affirmed that the constitution did not make it mandatory for public officers to declare their assets publicly, saying that there was need to look into the Act to compliment the fight against corruption.
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He said, “To declare is to announce publicly. The word, ‘declare’ is from the Latin word, declaro, meaning to announce publicly. So, if the law says you should declare, that means you should announce it. Under the FOI Act, if anybody does not declare publicly, the journalist can apply to the Code of Conduct Bureau to give you the asset declaration of anybody and then publish it. You cannot run a democracy on the basis of secrecy”.
Oditah pointed out that the declaration of asset was essentially a private document, saying that the people were justified to demand that the assets should be made public after the officer had made the declaration
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He said, “I can see why some people want it made public but the fact that somebody has not made it public does not mean that it cannot be made public. I don’t think there is a need to amend the Act with the presence of the FOI Act. The people you expect to amend the law are the same people who are expected to declare their assets”.
For Agbaje, “In view of the FOI Act, any Nigerian could compel the Code of Conduct Bureau to make it public. Nigerians have a right to go to court if the bureau failed to give access to the details of the assets”.
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Meanwhile, technocrats in the country have called for the amendment of the asset declaration law, for the purpose of removing the clause that gives public office holders the privilege of declaring their assets secretly.
President, Association of Professional Bodies, Mr. Segun Ajanlekoko, said being public servants, their dealings must be made public.
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He said, “As long as they are public servants, they should be transparent in their daily dealings, especially governors. Governance should be clean and those who are chief servants of every state can stand the litmus test of transparency. It is very important that the law be amended to allow compulsory public declaration of assets by chief public servants.”
Former Niger State commissioner for science and technology, Alhaji Moh’d Abubakar Katcha, said any political office holder who was ready to serve the people would not have a problem with public declaration of his or assets.
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“Public declaration of assets will give good impression of the leader’s character. I suggest that the law be amended to make governors and law makers declare openly,” Katcha told one of our correspondents during a telephone interview.
The immediate past chairman of Surveyors Council of Nigeria, Mr. Celestine Nwabichie, said the leaders must do what leaders in advanced democracies do if they want the country’s democracy to develop.
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He said, “Open declaration of assets by governors and law makers will definitely help to check corruption and ensure transparency and they must be made to do it after they leave office. What happens in other advanced democracies? Our leaders should support anything that ensures transparency.”
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