President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday received his assets declaration form ahead of his second term.
The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) presented the forms to him and and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the presidential villa in Abuja.
He urged the CCB to keep his form safe, saying he is sure that a lot of people who have “tested the bitter pill” of his anti-corruption war will seek to fight back by 2023 when his second term will end.
Buhari promised to fill his form the forms quickly and dispatch it to CCB.
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“I am very pleased that you are here. I assure you I will quickly fill this form and dispatch it to you. At the end of 2023, I believe there are a lot of people that will like to get back at me. So please, make sure you keep it safely because there are people who believe they shouldn’t be questioned and some of them are already in trouble. I expect them to fight back and this is one of the instruments. So, I hope you will keep it. Thank you very much indeed.”
Buhari, who commended Muhammad Isa, CCB chairman, for accepting to serve, said: “I am very pleased. I think I am meeting you for the first time since your appointment. I thank you for accepting to be in this very important institution and I thank you very much for serving me my forms which I must fill constitutionally before my second term of office.
“I think we cannot over emphasise the importance of your office because Nigerians are notorious for cutting short and not giving account of their public responsibilities and we are trying to impress it on our nation and the world that this administration is based on accountability.
“It is only institutions like yours that will bail us out from the efforts that we have been making to make sure that people in public offices do not abuse that public office and that those who come in and those that are leaving in certain positions make sure that they hold the integrity of the office and of the country generally in high esteem.”
Isah was accompanied by Murtala Kankia, Emmanuel Attah and other board members
In 2015, Buhari declared his assets but they were not made public, sparking a nationwide outrage. The CCB had said it had no legal powers to publicise Buhari’s assets.
However, in September 2015, Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, released a statement saying the president had less than N30 million to his name before he took office on May 29, 2015.
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According to the statement, Buhari owned five houses in Kaduna, Daura, Kano and Abuja, and has two undeveloped plots of land, one in Kano and the other in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.
Shehu also said the president had “one bank account with the Union Bank, no foreign account, no factory, no enterprises, and no oil wells” and two of his houses in Daura are “mud-made”.
“He borrowed money from the old Barclays Bank to build two of his homes,” he had said.
“The documents also showed that the retired general uses a number of cars, two of which he bought from his savings and the others supplied to him by the federal government in his capacity as a former Head of State. The rest were donated to him by well-wishers after his jeep was damaged in a Boko Haram bomb attack on his convoy in July 2014.”
