'Order Buhari, Osinbajo And Governors To Publish Their Assets' - SERAP Tells Court

 

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked a Federal High Court, Abuja to order President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Professor Yemi Osinbajo, 36 state governors and their deputies to make public details of their assets, according to a report by Vanguard.

 

The organisation asked the court to specifically order them to declare their property and income, contained in their asset declaration forms submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) since assuming office.

 

In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/65/2020 filed last Friday, SERAP is seeking: “an order for leave to apply for judicial review and an order of mandamus to direct and/or compel President Buhari, Vice-President Osinbajo, 36 state governors and their deputies to make public their summary of assets; disclose whether they have had any reason to review and update their asset declarations submitted to the CCB, and if the declarations have been made as constitutionally and statutorily required.”

 

SERAP is also seeking: “an order to compel President Buhari, Vice-President Osinbajo, 36 state governors and their deputies to disclose whether they have received any confirmation of the verification of their asset declarations by the CCB and to disclose whether they have taken any steps to encourage members of their cabinet to also submit their asset declarations to the CCB, and to make such declarations public.”

 

The suit followed SERAP’s Freedom of Information (FoI) requests dated January 3, 2020.

 

It expressed concern that: “The non-public disclosure by public officials of their summary of assets undermines the effectiveness and integrity of the constitutional and statutory obligations to submit asset declarations, especially given that declarations are designed to curb grand corruption, and weakens the public trust in the asset declaration regimes.”

 

According to SERAP, only two states—Lagos state and Niger state—have responded to its FoI requests.

 

It noted however that both states declined the requests to make public the assets of their governors and deputies, on the ground that “the FoI Act is inapplicable to state governments, their agencies and officials, and that only houses of assembly of states are constitutionally empowered to make laws on public records of states.”

 

Also, while reacting to SERAP FoI request to President Buhari, Mr Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, had said: “SERAP asking the president to declare publicly, on the basis of what law? The president will do what the law requires of him and what the law requires is that he should declare his asset which he has done. Declaring publicly is not in our laws; it can only be a voluntary thing.”

 

SERAP is therefore seeking a declaration that the failure of President Buhari, Vice-President Osinbajo, 36 state governors and their deputies to provide SERAP with the requested information on their assets constitutes a breach of SERAP’s right under the FoI Act, 2011, and such further order(s) the Honourable Court may deem fit to make in the circumstances.

 

The suit filed on behalf of SERAP by its counsel Kolawole Oluwadare, read in part: “The advantages that the general public would gain from being informed about the summary of assets declarations submitted to the CCB outweigh any perceived privacy or inconvenience if the court orders the details to be made public as sought by SERAP.”

 

 

 

SERAP argued that the general public have a legitimate interest in ascertaining and scrutinizing the veracity, exactitude and honesty of information contained in asset declarations submitted by public officials to the CCB. Without public disclosure of summary of assets, this would have no practical importance.

 

It further argued that public disclosure of summary of assets submitted to the CCB would help uncover any irregularities and trigger formal verification of declarations by the CCB and other anti-corruption agencies, be entirely consistent with government’s expressed commitment to prevent and combat corruption, provide a safeguard against abuse, and serve as an incentive to public officials to provide exact information when filing and submitting their asset declarations.

 

 

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.