100 Days: Will They Also Deny Promising To Make Buhari’s Assets Public?

Buhari

In this season of denials will the minders of President Muhammadu Buhari’s image and much valued integrity deny that their principal promised to make his assets public.

The president’s promise to make declaration of his assets public was meant to show how committed he was to the fight against corruption and to show that he is different from the much vilified corrupt administration of former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government led by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Based on that promise Nigerians had expected that the president would do the needful once sworn in as president on May 29, 2015 and they voiced out their disappointment when this was not the case. However their anxiety was assuaged when the president’s spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu told Nigerians that the president had indeed submitted his assets declaration forms to the Code of Conduct Bureau, but that he would not make it public yet, until the Code of Conduct Bureau verify the assets so declared. Many also believed that this would be done within the president’s first 100 days in office.

Several weeks after Garba Shehu’s clarification, Nigerians have not been updated on whether the Bureau has not yet finished verifying the assets. That was more than two months ago. If the Code of Conduct Bureau have not finished verifying the assets after such a long time it would be safe to assume that the assets may be very huge, especially for a president who was not rich and never touched public money all his life.

However if the Bureau has finished and the presidency did not want to make it public anymore, it would also be safe to say that the Presidency has developed cold feet over such ‘misadventure’, as the amount so declared may shock Nigerians.

Whatever may be the case the failure of this president to declare his assets in public as his kinsman, late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua did in 2007 shortly after he was sworn into office is bound to dent the war against corruption.

It would be recalled that when former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan said he don’t give a damn about making his asset declaration public on live television many Nigerian commentators condemned him. Jonathan’s “I Don’t  Give a Dawn” developed a life of its own that even when other issues come up that was not related to asset declaration, his traducers would resort: “Does he give a dawn?”

So a presidential candidate that promised to declare his assets public automatically had a good selling point and most Nigerians bought into it. It is therefore disingenuous for some of his aides to claim that he never made such promises or set any time lines. If that was the case, what makes him different from Jonathan or could it be that Nigerians merely changed faces at the Aso Rock Villa and nothing more?