Preserve my assets declaration form, Buhari tells CCB

Says looters will be interested in it by 2023
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday urged the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to preserve his assets declaration form in a very safe custody, saying a lot of the people who have tested the bitter pill of his anti-corruption war will want to get back at him by 2023 after his second term in office.

Buhari made the plea after himself and his deputy, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, were presented their assets declaration forms by officials of the CCB at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The President, who said he was going to quickly fill his form and dispatch it back to CCB, said: “I am very pleased that you are here, I assure you I will quickly fill this form and dispatch it back to you so that at the end of 2023, I believe there are a lot of people that will like to get back at me.

“So, please, make sure you keep it safely because there are people who believed they shouldn’t be questioned and they are being questioned and some of them are already in trouble. I expect them to fight back and this is one of the instruments. So, I hope you will keep it when I finish. Thank you very much indeed.”

Commending the CCB members for accepting to serve, Buhari said: “I am very pleased, I think I am meeting you for the first time since your appointment. I have never met you before. I thank you for accepting to be in this very important institution and I thank you very much for serving me my forms, which I must fill constitutionally before my second term of office.

“I think we cannot over-emphasise the importance of your office because Nigerians are notorious for cutting short and not giving account of their public responsibilities and we are trying to impress it on our nation and the world that this administration is based on accountability.

“It is only institutions like yours that will bail us out from the efforts that we have been making to make sure that people in public offices do not abuse that public office and that those who come in and those that are leaving in certain positions make sure that they hold the integrity of the office and of the country generally in high esteem.”