The Code of Conduct Bureau said, yesterday, that 15 former governors will soon be charged to court for lying in the assets declaration forms they filled while in office.
Chairman of the Bureau, Mr Sam Saba, who disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Abuja also justified the decision of the Bureau to let some governors off the hook.
He, however, insisted that former Governor of Lagos state and leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, has a case to answer before the conduct tribunal over allegations of operating foreign accounts while in office.
Confirming that 15 former governors will soon be charged to court, Mr Saba said: “I want to assure you that verification of the assets of some of the ex-governors is still ongoing including that of those who are still in power.
As it stands today, Borno and Plateau are the only states where we have not requested their governors and public officers to report for verification and this is due to the problem posed by the Boko Haram sect.
However, at the appropriate time, we will make public the outcome of our investigations and if it is established that any of them defaulted, we will accordingly charge them before the tribunal. But till then, we are not ready to try anyone on the pages of the newspaper”, Saba added.
He refuted allegations that the trial of Asiwaju Tinubu was a calculated witch-hunt exercise aimed at stifling opposition leaders in the country.
According to him:
The Bureau wishes to reiterate its position that the trial of Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu has no political undertone. It has been an ongoing case since year 2006. Admittedly, the case has taken such a long time due to some factors- the need to conduct thorough investigation and the time taken to constitute the full compliment of the tribunal after the death of the former chairman, Justice Sanni Murtala, SAN.
The Bureau wants to use this medium to call on the good and patriotic citizens of Nigeria to report to it any public office holder breaching the provisions of Code of Conduct for public officers, and wish to assure you that the Bureau has the capacity to deal with the situation no matter how highly placed the person is.
“Of recent, the Bureau has observed with some amusement, the campaign of calumny being perpetuated against it by a section of the press which has been issuing some stories based on conjectures, deliberate falsehood and sensational amplification of issues all with a view to pulling down the institution and its structures.
Further to the above, the issue of arraigning public officers before the Code of Conduct Tribunal has never been an issue of the board to discuss and take decisions. There are structures on the ground established by the board to carry out that responsibility; the ‘assets verification committee’ and the ‘petition screening committee’. Any officer that is established to have breached any provisions of the code of conduct for public officers after diligent investigation by any of the above committees is referred to the legal unit of the bureau for prosecution before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
So why should the case of Bola Ahmed Tinubu be different?
“Also it should be noted that the case of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which had started since the year 2006, had pre-dated the coming of the present board which was inaugurated in April 2010.
However, if the chairman is said to be taking a central position in the activities of the bureau vis-à-vis the case of Bola Ahmed Tinubu that is very understandable because he is the chairman of the organization and its principal spokesman.
This however should not be maliciously misconstrued as disagreement between him and the federal commissioners.”
It will be recalled that Tinubu was on September 21, docked before a 3-man panel of justices at the Code of Conduct Tribunal sequel to allegations that he operated 10 foreign accounts whilst in office between 1999 and 2007.
Meanwhile, the CCB boss who spoke yesterday alongside four commissioners of the Bureau, also adduced reasons why some former governors who were ab-initio accused of violating the Code of Conduct for Public officers whilst they were in office, would no longer face prosecution.
Saba said the CCB decided to drop the cases against the ex-governors after they admitted guilt and made restitution to the Federal Government, even as he specifically named the former governor of Jigawa State, Saminu Turaki, among those that benefitted from the said process. He declined to reveal the identity of other indicted ex-governors who embraced the ‘plea-bargain’ option.
