Make your declared assets public, SERAP tells Tinubu

Forum 3 months ago

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has told the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, to make public details of his assets, income, investments, liabilities, and interests.

The rights organisation also urged Tinubu to ask Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima, to declare his assets.

It also urged him to “immediately prioritise the full and effective respect for human rights, media freedom, the rule of law and the country’s judiciary by promptly obeying countless court judgments which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly treated with utter contempt and disdain.”

SERAP stated these in an open letter signed by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, dated May 27.

The group told Tinubu that it noted his promise to “kill corruption” and stressed that the President-elect should take it beyond rhetoric unlike the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

“SERAP notes your recent promise to ‘kill corruption’. However, this rhetoric is nothing new: the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, used a similar hollow anti-corruption phrase in 2015.

“As Nigerians have witnessed for eight years, Buhari has neither ‘killed corruption’ nor obeyed court judgments on transparency and accountability,” the organisation wrote.

It added that publishing details of his assets and encouraging Shettima to do the same would “allow Nigerians to know your worth and the worth of other public officials,” SERAP said, adding that if Tinubu’s election is upheld by the judiciary, “your government can use transparency in asset declarations as a means of promoting public accountability and ending systemic corruption in the country.”