ABUJA, Nigeria — The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) has investigated and verified the assets of more than 20 ministers and 30 permanent secretaries as part of efforts to strengthen accountability among public officers.
CCB Chairman, Abdullahi Bello, disclosed this in Abuja on Wednesday at an anti-corruption and asset-tracing stakeholders’ workshop organised by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) in collaboration with the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa, reports The PUNCH.
Bello said the bureau had moved beyond merely collecting asset declaration forms and was now examining declarations, investigating suspected violations and prosecuting offenders.
“We are not submitting forms anymore. Now, we’re examining the forms, we’re also investigating, and we’re also prosecuting,” he said.
The CCB chairman said the bureau had prioritised the verification of declarations by high-profile public officers.
“We have interviewed and verified the relations of more than 20 ministers, 30 permanent secretaries, 32 health agencies, and other high-profile individuals,” Bello said.
He explained that public officers were invited to the bureau for face-to-face examination of their records as part of the verification process.
According to him, declarations made at the beginning of an official’s tenure are compared with those made at the end of the tenure to identify unexplained changes in assets.
“One of the key things that we do is that, once you declare your assets at the beginning of your term, we verify it, then we’ll wait for you at the end of your term, we’ll also verify it.
“If you see any difference between the beginning and the end, that can only be explained by your non-social income, then we investigate you and prosecute you,” he said.
Bello, however, stressed that the CCB did not have to wait until an official completed their tenure before commencing an investigation.
“But it doesn’t mean that we have to wait for you to finish office before we can investigate you. If there is any allegation against you, we can also investigate. Or if there is intelligence against you, we can also investigate,” he said.
Speaking at the workshop, HEDA Executive Secretary, Arigbabu Sulaimon, said the meeting was designed to strengthen inter-agency collaboration, intelligence sharing and civil society participation in the fight against corruption.
Sulaimon said the workshop was “conceptualised not merely as a platform for speeches, but as a technical working session” focused on advancing three core institutional objectives.
He identified one of the objectives as bridging inter-agency gaps and strengthening cooperation between government institutions and civil society organisations to improve information sharing.
The HEDA executive secretary also advocated greater use of the Proceeds of Crime Act and the CCB’s statutory mechanisms in tracing and recovering illicit assets.
On whistleblower protection, Sulaimon called for stronger safeguards to encourage more individuals to provide information about corruption and other crimes.
