President Buhari failed in his promises, SERAP declares

A Lagos-based rights group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on the President-Elect, Senator Bola Ahmed to start with a clean slate by promptly making public details of his assets, income, investments, liabilities, and interests, and also encourage his Vice-President-Elect to do the same.

In a statement issued today through its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP charged the President-elect to, “Immediately prioritize the full and effective respect for human rights, media freedom, the rule of law and the country’s judiciary, including by promptly obeying countless court judgments which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly treated with utter contempt and disdain”.

Referring to its open letter dated May 27, 2023, the group posited that, "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.”

SERAP also stated that by widely publishing details of his assets, income, investments, and liabilities, and encouraging his Vice-President-Elect and others to do the same, Tinubu would have allowed Nigerians to know his worth and the worth of other public officials.

SERAP said, “If your 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”.

The letter read in part, “Buhari’s broken promises to make specific details of his assets public and to kill corruption have opened up the country’s political and electoral processes to a money free-for-all, discouraged political participation and contributed to impunity for corruption.

“Although President Buhari’s march to Aso Rock was predicated, in large part, on his campaign rhetoric to kill corruption, corruption remains widespread among high-ranking public officials and in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

“Making public details of your assets, liabilities, and interests would reduce unjust enrichment of public officials, ensure integrity in public offices and promote transparency and accountability as well as good governance.

“Nigeria is very rich, but its wealth is gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of the population, and the power of corrupt enrichment has continued to threaten to undermine the political integrity of the country.

“The tendency for politicians when trying to persuade Nigerians to vote for them is to conceal or hide traits that might make voters reluctant to vote them into power, and to hide what they want to do with that power. But once voted into power, politicians become trustees of public wealth and resources and must remove the camouflage".

SERAP, which added that effective enforcement and implementation of court judgments is critical to the national interest and the restoration of the rule of law in the country, insisted that the incoming government has a responsibility to improve citizens’ trust and confidence in government.

“Under the Buhari administration, the country has witnessed a general concentration of wealth in the hands of a few politicians and elites perceived to be enriching themselves at the expense of the public.

“The Buhari administration turned the idea of the rule of law and judicial independence on its head by persistently disobeying court judgments, including those ordering him to stop life pensions for former governors and to pay journalist Agba Jalingo N30 million as damages for violations of his human rights.

“The Buhari administration has also refused to obey the judgments by Justice Hadiza Rabiu Shagari ordering his government to tell Nigerians about the stolen assets it allegedly recovered, with details of the amounts recovered; and by Justice Mohammed Idris, ordering his government to publish details on the spending of stolen funds recovered by successive governments since 1999”, the group added.

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