The Presidency has denied that President Muhammadu Buhari ever promised the nation to make his assets public if elected during the electioneering campaign for the just concluded General Elections.
According to the special adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Femi Adesina in an interview with public commentator, Kayode Ogundamisi said that it was the All Progressives Congress not the President promised to declare his assets publicly if elected.
It will be recalled that during the electioneering campaign, President Buhari had openly declared that if elected, he would declare his assets publicly and it would be within the first 100 days of his administration.
“I believe if Nigeria does not kill corruption; corruption will kill Nigeria. I pledge to: Publicly declare my assets and liabilities and encourage my political appointees to also publicly declare their assets and liabilities,” he said.
According to Adesina, President Buhari has already done what the law requires by declaring his assets before the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
“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.”