The assets of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, cannot be publicly declared just yet.

According to Code of Conduct Bureau, it cannot make public the details of assets declared by Buhari and Osinbajo, as a result of the limitations in federal laws covering such release.

The presidency had disclosed that the assets of both leaders will be made public after the Code of Conduct Bureau authenticates claims in the declaration forms.

However, when that was taking a long time to happen, a civil society group, Stop Impunity Nigeria, an affiliate of the Centre for Social Justice, on June 1, 2015 applied to the CCB to request copies of the completed assets declaration forms by the President and his deputy.

In its response CCB/HQ/670/G/1/104 dated June 10, 2015 and signed by Ijeanuli Ofor on behalf of the Chairman, the Bureau declined the request, citing the absence of prescribed law by the National Assembly authorizing the release of such information to the public.

The Bureau stated that under section 1(1) 3 and 4 of the FOIA 2011, Nigerians had a right to “access or request information, whether written or not in written form, in the custody of any public agency”.

However, “sections 12(1) (a) (v), 14(1) (b) and 15(1)9a) of the same Act empowered it to decline any request, which it considered an invasion of personal privacy.”

“Assets declarations by public officers contain such personal information, which falls within the exemptions to the disclosure of information in the FOIA,” adding that: “paragraph 3(c of the Third Schedule, Part 1 of the constitution (as amended) empowered it to make assets declarations of public officers available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria only on terms and conditions prescribed by the National Assembly.”

“However, the terms and conditions under which that can be done have not yet been prescribed by the National Assembly.”

Kolapo Olapoju