Buhari Never Said He Will Publish Assets - Presidency

Femi Adesina, special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, says the president never promised to make his assets public. Adesina said the issue of assets publishing cannot be credited to the president but the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He said Buhari has declared his assets in compliance with the law and may decide to make them public when verification is concluded by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
He was speaking in an interview with Kayode Ogundamisi, a social commentator. “You need to get his words right, go and check all that the president said during the campaign, in no place would you see it attributed to him as a person,” Adesina said. “But then there is a document by his party, the All Progressives Congress, saying he would declare publicly, so we need to set that right, it’s a declaration by his party. “Now what does the law require? The law requires public officers to declare their assets; he has done that. But his party has a document that says he would do it publicly. “There is a procedure for that, and the procedure is that you first declare, code of conduct (bureau) would verify and after that, if you want to make it public, the onus lies on you to say release. The procedure has to be followed.” The presidential spokesman went on to say the decision to release or not release the asset for public consumption would be taken by the president when verification is done. “He has declared, and it is deposited with the code of conduct bureau and they need to verify. Let’s come to that time when code of conduct would say we have completed verification.” When contacted, Adesina told TheCable that the stance of the presidency is contained in a statement released by Garba Shehu, special assistant to the president on media and publicity. “The stance of the presidency has already been made known in a statement earlier issued by Garba Shehu. I have nothing to add,” he said. In Shehu’s statement issued on June 6, the had said the assets would soon be made public. “As required by law, the declaration and submission of documents to the CCB have been made, but there still remains the aspect of verification, which the Bureau will have to conduct to authenticate the submissions made to it,” the statement read. “In the circumstances, it is only after this verification exercise, and not before, that the declaration can be said to have been made and validated; and only after this, will the details be released to the public. “There is no question at all that the president and the vice-president are committed to public declaration of their assets within the 100 days that they pledged during the presidential campaign.” Nigerians have been mounting pressure on the president to publish details of his assets.