Anti-corruption group, Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CAOL) has asked Senate President Bukola Saraki to publicly declare his assets just as President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo did.
chairman of Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders, Debo Adeniran
According to the group’s chair, Mr. Debo Adeniran, it is important for Saraki to emulate the presidency and argued that should Saraki declares his assets, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, and other principal officers of the National Assembly would be willing to declare their assets.
“Specifically, the principal officers of the National Assembly must declare their assets starting from the Senate President. All ministers and those who will work directly with the President such as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the President’s Chief of Staff must also declare their assets publicly.
“That is how we will know that they have clean hands. Otherwise, they will become conduit pipes through which money will be siphoned from the public purse. Without such declaration, nobody knows how much they might have made after leaving office.”
“It is now the norm that anyone that wants to serve in any position of leadership of the present administration to publicly declare his or her assets because already, we have doubts about how much these individuals have made over the years.
“We want to know how much they are worth and have a benchmark with which we would measure what they would declare at the end of their tenure. Their spouses, children and siblings should also declare their assets since they enjoy whatever must have been received by the public officials” he said in a statement published in Punch newspaper.
It would be recalled that the senate is currently probing the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde, while Saraki’s wife is being investigated by the EFCC for alleged financial impropriety.
