30 Jun 2007 |
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Yar'Adua's Assets Declaration Indeed, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua deserves commendation for his decision to declare his assets publicly contrary to the advice of the Code of Conduct Bureau that he needs not do so since such a step is not required under the Fifth Schedule of the Constitution. The President's choice in the matter is a demonstration of confidence, and a good moral and symbolic gesture. There have been calls for other public officials to follow his example, but since the law does not make this mandatory, I doubt if there would be any enthusiastic disciples. The law talks about "written declaration to the Code of Conduct Bureau", not to the public The President's Assets Declaration Form indicates that he and his wife have fortunes, including assets and gifts in the region of N856 million plus N19 million. By Nigerian standards, a country where over 70 per cent of the population live on less than a dollar per day, the President is a very rich man indeed, and so the question needs to be asked and he still needs to clarify this: how did he acquire all that wealth? There are references in his declaration form to assets acquired through savings: how did he come about those savings? From his salaries as a college chemistry teacher? How did a former school teacher amass so much wealth? How much tax has he paid to the state? He was said to have declared his assets in 1999 when he assumed office as Governor of Katsina state. What was he worth then compared to what he has now declared in 2007, after eight years of being a state Governor? {mosgoogle}There are references also to assets valued at N110 million being inheritance from his father and his late brother. I guess no one can quarrel with this. And then something about pre-election and post-election campaign gifts: should this be part of the President's family wealth? Section 6 (1) of the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution is relevant here: "A public officer shall not ask for or accept property or benefits of any kind for himself or any other person on account of anything done or omitted to be done by him in the discharge of his duties". Section 6 (2) further forbids "the receipt by a public officer of any gifts or benefits from commercial firms, business enterprises or persons who have contracts with government..." So, what is the source of the gifts to the Yar'Aduas? By declaring his assets however, President Yar'Adua is giving us the opportunity to keep records and compare what he has declared now with whatever he leaves office with at the end of his tenure. He has shown support for and faith in the right of the public to know. The President may still need to offer more information, but for now, what he has done shows his commitment to his promise to use assets declaration as a tool for ensuring transparency and integrity in government. On the other hand, it should be noted that when compared with other public officials who spent eight years in government as he did as Katsina State Governor, President Yar'Adua could be considered a modest man indeed with his N856 million and his wife's N19 million. As a rule, public office serves Nigerians as an opportunity to loot the treasury and amass enormous wealth. Some of those who served as Local Government Chairmen, Directors-General, Ministers or Governors in the past eight years must be laughing at the figures declared by the President. An average local government chairman automatically becomes a billionaire by holding that position. In Nigeria , Governors and their wives run the state treasury as if it were a personal estate. One Governor boasted in his second term, that he was richer than the state and that he was doing the people a favour by agreeing to be Governor. There were many Governors in the last dispensation who while in office set up businesses worth billions of Naira, and who bought houses all over the world. Mrs Yar'Adua is worth N19 million? She must be the poorest First Lady in Nigeria today. Do you want to compare her to em.. em and em, those First Ladies whose wardrobe and stock of jewellery alone would put N19 million to shame. It is a pity that there is no indication that those who occupied public offices between 1999 and 2007 complied with the relevant provisions of the law on assets declaration. Under Section 11 of the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution, every public officer is required to declare, in writing, his or her assets "(a) at the end of every four years; and (b) at the end of his term of office." Was this complied with? Nigerians for example would like to know whether or not President Obasanjo declared his assets "at the end of his term of office." As for the state Governors and their First Ladies, the details will be so shocking, Nigerians could call for blood. President Yar'Adua's declaration of assets I suppose is not as simple and straightforward as it seems. It draws attention to a number of other issues. The first is the politics and practice of assets declaration in the Nigerian context. It is a process that has been often abused, and treated perfunctorily, such that instead of serving the purpose of ensuring the integrity of public officials, it actually serves as a vehicle for corrupt self-enrichment. The missing link is in the fact that the Code of Conduct Bureau does not carry out any authentication of declarations. Whatever is declared is accepted as a matter of course. There is no mechanism in place for tracking an individual's assets. In a country with a poor data base, and where access to information is difficult, basic information can be so difficult to verify. And so politicians exploit this by engaging in what has been described, for want of a better term, as "anticipatory declaration". In other words, the assets declaration form is filled up with assets that the public official hopes to acquire while in office. A corruption margin is smuggled into the form. If the public official has two houses on assumption of office, he could declare five, and in due course he builds the additional three houses, or he could record a vacant plot of land as a fully built up structure. If anybody tries to check at all, by then the structure would have been in place. There should be a way of authenticating the claims on the assets declaration forms submitted by all public officials. Did the Code of Conduct Bureau authenticate the President's claims? Second, the Code of Conduct Bureau needs to be strengthened. The existing notion that assets declaration is covered under the "Official Secrets Act" should be jettisoned. It is good news that the Presidency has promised to propose an executive bill to this effect. This should be backed with a Freedom of Information Law. With such legislation in place, whistle-blowers would be encouraged to monitor public officials and this could have the effect of restraint. For all categories of public office holders, the public declaration of assets would help to prevent the kind of situation in which Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara state has now found himself. The News magazine in a recent publication accused the Governor of having "fabulous wealth" as indicated by his Assets Declaration Form. The man says this is not true and that the assets declaration form on which The News report is based is fictitious. This disagreement would not have arisen if there is a law in place which makes public declaration of assets compulsory. And what can be done about assets held by proxies? This practice is patently illegal; it is the biggest threat to the assets declaration process. It is what reduces it to the level of a mere symbolic, administrative effort. Section 13 of the Fifth Schedule criminalizes this when it says: "A public officer who does any act prohibited by this Code through a nominee, trustee, or other agent shall be deemed ipso facto to have committed a breach of the Code." But it is common knowledge that many public officials do not hold assets acquired while in office, under their own names. They have consultants and fronts who help to hide away stolen wealth so perfectly that this may be difficult to trace, more so as there is not yet a strong documentation and monitoring mechanism for tracking transactions within the Nigerian system. Shares could be bought in the names of fronts, companies can be set up under the cover of agents, money can be hidden away in bank accounts belonging to siblings and other agents. This could even involve elaborate psychological weapons such as the taking of oaths and rituals. A few years after leaving office, the man retrieves all the wealth in the hands of proxies who would have been duly compensated for their services. There are many jobless Nigerians at home and in diaspora, whose principal prayer point is to come across such a public official who will agree to use them as a front. The banks also need to be investigated more closely: some of the banks may facilitate corruption by helping to open ghost accounts, the secret of which is known only to the bank's inner circle. Where banks are not used, Nigerian public officials have devised other means: they hide money away in overhead or underground water tanks in their homes, in secret vaults and so on. One public official's home was once raided and the authorities found money in different foreign currencies in cartons of beer. Another public official had reportedly turned an overhead water tank into a vault! What needs to be reformed ultimately is the nature of the Nigerian state as an arena for primitive accumulation. There is need also for general societal re-orientation. The unwritten expectation among Nigerians is that once a man goes into public office, he should grab his own share of the proverbial national cake. He is expected to leave office a richer man than when he got there, and leave the treasury completely empty if possible. This is an expression of the lack of faith in the system, also of the "big man syndrome". It is the reason why there is so much jostling for public positions, why politics has become a "do-or-die" affair, and government appointment, the easiest route to wealth. Every day, a long queue of hangers-on besieges the homes of public officials, all seeking their own share of the loot. Those who have been in such positions complain endlessly about pressures; even when they change their phone numbers, friends and relatives find other ways of constituting themselves into a nuisance. So the man feels compelled to steal for himself and a little for the beggars at his door step. This is the reality of a country that is truly "no longer at ease". One former Minister was said to have returned to his community in rather poor and modest circumstances. He was laughed to scorn by his kinsmen. He was accused of wasting their slot in public office. To fight corruption, this cultural crisis of values in society should be addressed. Now, two final questions for President Yar'Adua: does he have any other assets held in trust for him and his wife by agents? Two, he is required by law also to declare the assets and liabilities of his "unmarried children under the age of eighteen years". Does he have children under eighteen years, and if he does, are there other assets being held in their names? My point: in Nigeria , an assets declaration form in the final analysis, may not really tell the whole story.
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