President Jonathan Has Declared His Assets!

After the Presidential media chat of Sunday the 24th of June 2012, several websites went to town with the news that President Jonathan had not declared his assets and does not "give a damn" about it. A particular website wrote that "Asked why he had not declared his assets, Mr. Jonathan replied in an impatient tone, stating “I don’t give a damn” about declaration of assets".

NaijaPundit watched the Presidential media chat and listened as Mr. Jonathan declared that he was against PUBLIC declaration of assets and not against declaration of assets because opposition politicians would politicize it and use it to blackmail every other elected politician to publicly declare their own assets and the ensuing controversy would detract from governance because politicians would "politicize everything".

This prompted NaijaPundit to investigate the insinuation in certain sites to the effect that the President was against the declaration of assets to establish the truth of the matter.

Our investigations revealed that President Jonathan had indeed declared his assets as required by law only that he did not publicly declare them as this is not required by law.

We also unearthed information to the effect that all a diligent journalist needs to do is file a Freedom of Information request at the appropriate governmental agency. Incidentally, President Jonathan signed the Freedom of Information Bill into law on Saturday, May 28, a day after it was sent to him by the outgoing National Assembly. 

In a bid to hoodwink the public, these sites that are known to be linked to certain opposition party elements sold the dummy to the public that President Jonathan is in breach of the constitution by not declaring his assets publicly, however, Section 153 of the Constitution which set up the Code of Conduct Bureau provides that all public officials listed in the fifth schedule of the constitution should declare their assets before and at the end of their tenure. The appropriate authority to whom the declaration of assets is made is the Code of Conduct Bureau.

As it stands now the only thing standing between any journalist and the President's Asset Declaration Form is a Freedom of Information request.