MRA Welcomes CCB’s Initiative on Framework
for Citizens’ Access to Assets Declarations by Public Officers
Media Rights Agenda (MRA) today welcomed the initiative by the Code of
Conduct Bureau (CCB) to put in place a legal framework to facilitate
access for members of the public to the declaration of assets made by
public officers.
MRA’s Executive Director, Mr. Edetaen Ojo, said in Lagos that the
organization had campaigned over the last seven years through a
combination of legislative advocacy and litigation in court to ensure that
Nigerian citizens have access to the asset declarations made by public
officers to enable them assist the Bureau in the implementation of the
law.
He said: “We have since 1999 recognized that the objectives of the asset
declaration process as contained in the Third Schedule to the 1999
Constitution and the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act would be
meaningless if there is no public participation in the process. We are
pleased that the Code of Conduct Bureau, which opposed us in court on this
very issue, has now come to the same realization. We stand ready to work
with the Bureau and offer to assist it to make this happen.”
Mr. Ojo called on the National Assembly and the Presidency to ensure the
speedy passage of the amendments now proposed by the Bureau in order to
enhance the legal framework for the crusade against corruption in public
office.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Note 1
The Code of Conduct Bureau’s Senior
Information Officer, Mr. Suleiman Haruna, issued a statement in Abuja on
July 13, 2006, saying that the Bureau had drafted guidelines to give
members of the public access to assets declared by public officers as part
of a wide range of amendments it was proposing to the National Assembly in
the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal (Amendment) Bill.
The statement quoted the Bureau’s
secretary, Mr. Sam Saba, as saying that the Bureau was disposed to making
the declaration of assets by public officers available to members of the
public but was constrained by Section 3(c) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule
to the 1999 Constitution, which provides that: “the Bureau shall have
power to retain custody of such declarations and make them available for
inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the
National Assembly may prescribe.”
The statement also quoted Mr. Saba as
saying that despite numerous submissions the Bureau had made to the
National Assembly, the Federal Legislature had not prescribed the terms
and condition upon which people could inspect the declarations.
Note 2
In 1999, Media Rights Agenda applied for
copies of the asset declarations made by 40 public officers, including
President Olusegun Obasanjo and the 36 State Governors. Following the
Bureau’s refusal to avail MRA of the asset declarations, it filed a suit
at the Federal High Court asking it to among other things, compel the
Bureau to release the asset declarations to it.
But in his ruling, Justice Jinadu said: “I
am also of the view that the terms and conditions to be prescribed by the
National Assembly is a condition precedent to the exercise of the
unimpeded right of access to inspect the declaration forms submitted to
the Code of Conduct Bureau by public officers." He held that since the
National Assembly had not prescribed the terms and conditions for the
exercise of the right of access to inspection, the suit was incompetent
and struck out the suit.
MRA recalled that a Federal High Court in
Lagos had ruled that Nigerians could not inspect the assets declarations
made by public officers until the National Assembly prescribes the
conditions for its exercise, when the organization took the Bureau to
Court for refusing to make available to it asset declarations made to the
Bureau by some public officers.
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