BVN: Customers Call for Extension As Exercise Ends June 30

As the deadline for the verification of customers’ bank accounts ends on Tuesday, June 30, customers in Kaduna State, Northwest Nigeria, on Monday besieged banks trying to have their accounts verified.

Surprisingly, with less than 24 hours to the deadline, not many of the customers were aware of the process or the deadline.

Customers who were yet to enrol had been gripped by fear that their bank accounts would be frozen and the insistence on the BVN by bank cashiers before attending to customers also heightened the fears, leading to unusually large turnout of customers at banking halls in the state capital on Monday.

Channels Television correspondent who visited some banks in the state capital, reports that customers had a hectic day trying to register their account numbers due to poor network and insufficient bank officials to attend to them.

Some customers trooped to the banks as early as 7am to ensure they register their account numbers. Sadly, the entire process seemed to be epileptic as only a few of them were able to have their account numbers verified, forcing them to spend over six hours waiting to be verified.

Reacting to the development, most of the customers called for the extension of the deadline for a period of two months to enable them register their numbers. Some of them, however, called on banks to simplify the process by making it possible for them to be verified over the internet.

Some bank customers in Abuja who have not obtained their BVN have also asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to extend the deadline set for the registration.

Also in Port Harcourt the Rivers State capital, it was a last minute rush at different commercial banks as customers tried to collect their BVN ahead of the proposed dead line.

Some customers who spoke to Channels Television said it is a good idea to gather data but wondered if the time frame for collection would allow many people to meet up with the deadline. They expressed frustration at the process involved in the BVN registration.

According to the CBN during a meeting of the Bankers’ Committee in Abuja about three weeks ago, customers who are not enrolled in the system by June 30, could be cut off from some services.

The BVN gives each bank customer a unique identity across the Nigerian banking industry. The goal of the Bank Verification Number is to uniquely verify the identity of each customer.

NEC sets up committee to probe NNPC missing funds

The National Economic Council chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday set up a four-member committee to scrutinise the accounts of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Excess Crude Account managed by the last administration. 

The probe was meant to unravel N3.8trillion not remitted to the Federation Account by the NNPC between 2012 and May 2015 as well as $2.1bn said to have been deducted from the ECA without approval.

Zamfara State Governor, Abdulazeez Yari; Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State; Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State; and Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State briefed State House correspondents at the end of the 58th meeting of the council held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. 

Yari said through a briefing by the Director of Funds, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr. M.K. Dikwa, council members got the report of the ECA and unremitted funds by NNPC.

He said, “On that line, a four-man committee consisting of the governors of Edo, Gombe, Kaduna and Akwa Ibom State was constituted to go through the books of ‎NNPC and Excess Crude as well as the Federation Account.

‎”The four-man committee will check the books of NNPC, most especially the issue of excess crude and what is not remitted into the Federation Account. The FG, in conjunction with the CBN, will look inwards to see how to support, how much they will give to states especially on the issue of outstanding salaries owed by the states and even the Federal Government.”

Explaining further, Oshiomhole said the meeting was the first time that the NNPC and the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation were compelled to provide information on issues concerning the total sales of Niger‎ia’s crude from 2012 to May 2015, saying that has never happened before. 

He said presentations revealed that although NNPC claimed it earned N8.1trillion between 2012 and May 2015, the corporation only paid N4.3trillion into the Federation Account.

The governor said, “We are talking about transparency; we are talking about change. And what we saw from those numbers which ‎I believe that Nigerians are entitled to know, is that whereas the NNPC claimed to have earned N8.1 trillion, what NNPC paid into the Federation Account from 2012 to May 2015 was N4.3 trillion.

“What it means is that NNPC withheld and spent N3.8 trillion.

“The major revelation here is that the entire federation, that is the Federal Government, the states and all the 774 local governments, the amount the NNPC paid into the Federation Account for distribution to these three tiers of government came to N4.3 trillion and NNPC alone took and spent N3.8 trillion. 

“This means that the cost of running NNPC is much more than the cost of running the Federal Government. That tells you how much is missing, what is mismanaged and what is stolen. There are huge figures.”

The governor said the basic law was that one does not sell and spend. 

He said there was no enterprise manager who goes to the market, sells and just begin to spend, otherwise nobody needs to budget. ‎

Oshiomhole said the only lawful way decreed by the Constitution was that if NNPC needed to spend money, it is obliged to prepare its budget like every other business enterprise, get it scrutinised by the executive and then forwarded to the National Assembly which will appropriate on it accordingly. 

He wondered that if the Federal Government could not spend without appropriation, why should any agency of government do that.

Idris takes over as AGF, vows to fight corruption

The newly appointed Accountant General of the Federation, Alh. Ahmed Idris ‎on Monday formally assumed office and vowed zero tolerance for corruption at the Treasury House.

‎Idris formally took over from the former acting AGF, Mr. Mohammad Dikwa at about 5:30pm on Monday.

He called for cooperation among all members of staff and departments to be able to achieve the strategic role entrusted on the treasury.

He pledged that under his leadership, corruption would not be allowed to thrive among members of staff of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

Idris also said he would build on the achievements of his predecessor to take the treasury to an enviable height.

He said the OAGF under him would ensure transparency and accountability, and probity in the management of the nation’s treasury.

He said, “Corruption as a national challenge cannot occur without active collaboration and connivance of finance managers."

“Officers with corrupt tendencies must be prepared to purge themselves of it as my treasury under my watch would maintain zero tolerance for corruption."

“The treasury is entrusted with public funds and therefore the responsibility of providing adequate accounting system and controls with best practices to ensure revenues accruing to government are fully collected and accounted for and authorised payments are used for purposes meant; and that assets and liabilities are fully recorded and financial statements are rendered timely.”

Speaking earlier, Dikwa called for support for the new AGF noting that the ultimate target of the current reforms in the treasury was to allow for zero tolerance for corruption.

Somalia Islamist attacks suggest Al-Shabaab may not be defeated by 2016

A Somali soldier guards outside a military intelligence base in Mogadishu

A wave of recent attacks by al-Shabaab militants in  Somalia, including on African Union (AU) peacekeepers’ bases, shows the threat still posed by the al-Qaeda-linked group that the government has vowed to defeat by 2016.

Several Somali soldiers were killed overnight Sunday when al-Shabaab fighters attacked a base in the southern Kismayo region, officials and witnesses said Monday.

Heavy gunfire was reported late Sunday for several hours, with the al-Shabaab briefly taking over the camp near Kismayo and beheading some of those captured before looting supplies and leaving, witnesses said.

In another attack, al-Shabaab said it killed at least 30 soldiers, many of them AU peacekeepers from Burundi, in a June 26 raid on Leego base in southern Somalia.

The AU confirmed the assault, without giving a death toll. The violence, which came the same day as attacks by other extremists on a French factory, a Tunisian beach and a mosque in Kuwait, underscores the limited success of Somalia’s army and African troops in checking al- Shabaab’s seven-year-old insurgency.

While they've lost control of key towns, “al-Shabaab has consistently shown its ability to strike in urban areas and regroup in rural bases,” Ahmed Soliman, Horn of Africa analyst at Chatham House, the London-based research group, said by e-mail. “It will take much longer to defeat the group and require Somalia’s security services to be significantly improved.”

Regaining control of Somalia, wracked by more than two decades of civil war, is crucial to the government’s plan of inviting foreign investors to kick-start the economy.

Oil and gas output may begin by 2020 after exploration work showed the potential for large offshore deposits, while companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc are in talks about returning, according to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamed.

The conflict has drawn in troops from countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Burundi as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM.

How the upstart Warriors went all the way

Even when an outcome is expected, it can still manage to be surprising. When the Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night to win the NBA title, it should have seemed like a formality. After all, the team cruised through the season, amassing the third-most wins in league history and breaking records with Stephen Curry, the NBA’s most valuable player, at the helm.

Nevertheless, there was something odd about watching the team storm the court after the final buzzer. Few had predicted the Warriors would win a title this year, much less cement the team in the pantheon of all-time greats.

There were plenty of reasons to doubt the Warriors. Curry, their undisputed leader, has a history of injuries. Then there’s the persistent myth of jump-shooting teams, the veritable definition of the Warriors’ offensive style, failing to win championships. Playing a number of their games at late hours on the West Coast, the Warriors literally couldn’t be seen to be believed by many viewers across the country.

Then there was the opposition: the formidable Western Conference with its dynastic Spurs, towering Rockets, and flashy Clippers. To win the title, the Warriors had to defeat LeBron James, the world’s best player, who was making his fifth consecutive NBA Finals appearance. Meanwhile, not a single player on the Warriors’ roster had ever played in the Finals, it was the first time a team with no experience in the championship round had won a title since Michael Jordan and the 1991 Chicago Bulls. The Warriors also pulled it off while being led by Steve Kerr, a coach in his first year with the team.

For a few moments, particularly after the Cavaliers went up 2-1 in the series, it looked as if experience would win out. But the Warriors, already stocked with both chemistry and talent, ultimately came back because their roster was also deep.

The difference wasn’t a combustible scorer like Curry or a shutdown defender like Draymond Green, but rather a bench player, Andre Iguodala, who became the first player ever to be named the NBA Finals’ Most Valuable Player without starting all the games.

With the team struggling after two straight losses, Warriors coach Steve Kerr started Iguodala to round out a smaller lineup. Iguodala scored, rebounded, assisted, guarded LeBron James admirably, and opened the floor for the Warriors to shoot three-pointers over a taller and stronger Cavaliers team. The team won the next three games, including the clincher in which Iguodala scored 25 points. An unexpected hero for an unexpected champion.

Despite the title, some still aren’t willing to believe in Golden State. Just hours after the Warriors won the title on Cleveland’s home court, Las Vegas oddsmakers made the Cavaliers the league favorite to win the title next year. If this past season is any indication, it’s not a bet worth making.

Nigerian journalist pours more scorn on Mugabe

Sahara Reporters’ Adeola Fayehun has poured more scorn on President Robert Mugabe, saying he was so old and that she thought he should not be even in charge of a church.

In her latest episode of “Keeping it real with Adeola”, Fayehun pokes more fun at Mugabe in a satirical video, laced with sarcasm, which others assumed was a genuine apology.

Fayehun said the only thing she regretted about her confrontation with Mugabe in Nigeria last month was that her side comments were not edited out at the end of the interview.

“Me saying he is old is something that struck me,” she said.

“If he were to be my grandfather, I don’t think I would even want him in charge of a church – not to talk about a whole country.”

The United States based journalist shot to fame after door stepping Mugabe at the inauguration of Nigerian leader Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.

She asked the 91 year-old about his plans for retirement, health and lack of democracy in Zimbabwe among a number of inconvenient questions.

Her stunt angered government officials and the State media was unleashed on the privately owned Zimbabwean newspapers that covered the story with the Sunday Mail leading the onslaught.

Fayehun said some of her colleagues were asking Mugabe to smile for pictures and she believes there were more pertinent questions to ask Zimbabwe’s President.

She acknowledged receiving a backlash for her ambush on Mugabe, but she insisted there was nothing wrong with her line of questioning, as even CNN’s Christiane Amanpour had asked the Zimbabwean leader similar questions.

“Asking President Mugabe when he will step down was awful, it was terrible what I did,” Fayehun said tongue in cheek.

“How dare I, a small girl like myself, ask a whole President when he will step down, especially in Africa where we are not supposed to ask questions of our elders?

“We are supposed to respect them, whether they are dictators or not, whether they are corrupt or not, we are not supposed to challenge them.”

Fayehun then goes on to cite instances where she thinks Mugabe has failed Zimbabwe including the disappearance of activist, Itai Dzamara, the Gukurahundi massacres and mismanagement of the economy.

Information minister, Jonathan Moyo, who referred to Sahara Reporters as Boko Haram journalists, is not spared, as he is literally described as singing for his supper.

Fayehun said the encounter with Mugabe had ended her career and she was ending her weekly show, but a description of the video on video sharing site, YouTube asks rhetorically: “Is this the end of Keeping It Real?”

The Sunday Mail reported that Sahara Reporters must be eating humble pie after being forced to apologise, while an editorial in the paper said NewsDay and Daily News thought they had had their “wet dream”, which has since turned into a nightmare.

The paper said Fayehun had been forced to cancel her show and had her tail tucked in between her legs, as she made the apology.

First Lady: don’t pay any money to see President

First Lady Aisha Buhari has warned influence peddlers never to collect money from people who want to see the President.

She spoke on Saturday night during “an appreciation dinner at the old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, in honour of All Progressives Congress (APC) women and youths who played a major role in President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the March 28 election.

She said: “There is nothing people did not say about the past administration. It is not Jonathan that is not good but the people around him."

“So, the people that are going to be around President Buhari have to be very careful because this election ended peacefully."

“We are praying and hoping that people around him should know that it took him 12 years to get to that position and they must know that they are coming to serve the masses, not President Buhari in person."

“It is the people that are around him that will determine the political health of our state.”

Stressing that the Buhari administration would run an open government, Mrs. Buhari said it would be run in clear departure from what obtained in the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration when people were allegedly asked to pay  money in foreign currency before they could see the President or his wife.

$21m released by FG to boost anti-Boko Haram war

President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the release of $21 million out of the $100 million pledged by Nigeria to the Multi National Joint Task Force against Boko Haram.

Buhari announced this while chairing the African Union (AU), Peace and Security Council (PSC) meeting at the on-going AU summit in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He said the order, which was in response to a decision by the leaders of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) and Benin in Abuja to immediately fund the MNJTF with not less than $30 million, will be carried out this week.

“The member countries of Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin, met recently where far reaching decisions were taken to immediately put into operations the Multinational Joint Task Force.

“To this end, the summit approved the immediate provision of $30 million for the Multinational Joint Task Force.

“Consequently out of the pledge of $100 million which Nigeria made to the Multinational Joint Task Force, I have directed that $21 million be released within the next one week,’’ Buhari told the AU.

He said he was pleased to note that Cameroon, Chad and Niger “are demonstrating of this support.

“They are fighting alongside Nigeria under the umbrella of Multinational Joint Task Force to defeat Boko Haram.’’

Buhari observed that the continent was inundated with crises of various forms which required urgent attention.

“We are witnesses to the rampant destruction of homes, roads, communications lines, vital infrastructure and displacement of persons not to mention terrible loss of lives.”

“This is true I must add of the North-East of Nigeria where we are dealing with the scourge of Boko Haram.”

“The Boko Haram insurgency has extended its reach to Nigeria’s neighbours but is not necessarily limited to these immediate countries as terrorism is a global phenomenon with linkages across the globe.”

“Given this dimension of global terror, it requires us to act accordingly in brotherhood and partnership to fight our common goals against agents of evil,’’ he said.

Angola spends more on its military than Nigeria and South Africa combined

Angola  spent more on its military last year than any other sub-Saharan African nation even though it’s been at peace since a civil war ended more than a decade ago.

The southwest African country budgeted $6.8 billion on defence, second only to Algeria in continental Africa, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It’s more than the combined amount of Nigeria and South Africa, the region’s biggest economies that together have a population 10 times larger. 

Spending rose almost fourfold since the end of Angola’s 27-year conflict in 2002, the institute said.

“What’s spectacular about this is that you essentially have a country that has been at peace over the last 13 years,” Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, author of the book “Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War,” said in a phone interview from London. “Just the numbers tell a crazy story.”

Angola, the continent’s second-largest crude oil producer after Nigeria, has assumed a regional leadership role to broker peace in the rebel-threatened eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and sits as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. 

The country’s emphasis on defence spending leaves it with less cash available to alleviate poverty in a country with the world’s highest child mortality rate.

Even after Angola cut its budget by a quarter this year, reeling from a 40% plunge in oil prices, defence and security spending is set to rise, budget figures show. It will exceed the combined total allocated for health and education, according to Finance Ministry documents.

The outlay on the military remains opaque with the government failing to fully disclose its spending plans. A Defense Ministry spokesman, who gave his name only as Adriano, declined to comment when reached by phone in Luanda on Thursday.

Angola invested $1 billion on fighter jets and weapons from Russia in 2013, according to Vedomosti, a Moscow-based business newspaper. The country paid an undisclosed sum for surveillance drones from Israel, London-based aviation news website Flightglobal.com reported. 

It’s also buying 45 Casspir armored personnel carriers from South Africa’s state-owned Denel SOC Ltd., according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ 2015 Military Balance report assessing defence policy.

“These deals are handled by a handful of people that revolve around President Jose Eduardo dos Santos,” Paula Roque, a Johannesburg-based analyst with International Crisis Group, said by phone. The president has the discretion to spend a percentage of the budget “in any manner or form he wants, without accountability, fiscal transparency and without oversight of other organs of the state,” she said.

The decline in oil income will force the government to slow its defense purchases, according to Alex Vines, director of the Africa Program at Chatham House in London. Already Angola shelved plans to buy seven patrol boats from Brazil in a deal agreed on in September, Vines said.

“The government was planning on a modernization process of the armed forces, partly aimed at strengthening Angola’s reputation as an emerging regional power in central Africa and the Gulf of Guinea,” Vines said in an e-mailed response to questions. “Oil price falls have meant a number of these efforts have been scrapped or moth balled.”

Also, Angola, with a population of 24 million, has an active armed forces of about 107,000, composed of 100,000 soldiers, 6,000 air corps members and 1,000 navy officers, according to IISS.  That’s the sixth-largest contingent in sub-Saharan Africa, after Sudan’s 244,300 troops, followed by South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Angola maintains a “ghost army” of former combatants that bloat the payroll, to ensure stability after the civil war, Vines said.

Dos Santos, in power since 1979, ensures a portion of the defence budget goes to his military leaders and he appoints people who have no independent power base inside the ruling party so that they remain loyal to him, said Soares de Oliveira.

“It’s meant that the army is both extraordinarily mighty, at least in terms of its size in the sub-Saharan Africa context there’s practically no equivalent,” Soares de Oliveira said.

“But it’s also been politically reliable and politically quietist; it hasn’t had aspirations.”

AU Meeting in Johannesburg

At the AU’s summit in Malabo, capital of Equatorial Guinea, last year then newly elected Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was the big draw, receiving rapturous applause as Egypt returned to the continental fold following its suspension a year earlier.

Sisi had just kicked off a storm of international controversy with the jailing of Al-Jazeera journalists a week back. And after the 2013 coup he engineered, Egypt’s first democratically elected Mohamed Morsi had been thrown in prison.

But Sisi had also started a crackdown against extremist violence that threatened to tear Egypt apart; won an election that was marred by an opposition boycott; and looked like the iron-fisted enforcer the AU so loves. Despite all that, there still was a palpable sense that someone who could re-impose order in Egypt had taken the reins. The summit just loved him.

Buhari’s moment

This week’s summit was to be Nigerian president Muhammud Buhari’s debut party. Buhari, who was sworn-in just over two weeks ago, had just returned from the G7 meeting in Berlin with US president Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British prime minister Tony Blair & Co. to push his vision of how Africa might defeat terror.

The kind of former general beloved by the AU, Buhari won a resounding victory in March elections, becoming the first Nigerian opposition candidate to defeat a sitting president.

Defying cynicism about Nigeria, incumbent Goodluck Jonathan graciously conceded defeat, and the country pulled off a transition many probably hoped they would never live to see it do.

On both sides of the African leadership aisle, the militarists on one side, and the democrats on the other, Buhari offered something.

But Buhari didn’t really get his moment, as this summit  was overshadowed by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) case against a sitting African president, in this case Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir.

Wanted by ICC

The ICC asked South Africa to arrest Bashir as he arrived in the country for the summit on June 13. The Sudanese president is wanted by the court over charges of war crimes against humanity and genocide during the conflict in the western Darfur region of his country.

But the drama hit a high point when a South African judge on Sunday ordered authorities to stop Bashir from leaving the country, pending a decision on whether to detain him as the ICC had requested.

From then on, the summit became a big international story, not for its deliberations, but over whether South Africa would hold Bashir or let him go.

Omar al-Bashir

In the end, Bashir left Monday before a final ruling by the South High Court. In Khartoum, crowds gathered to give him a hero’s welcome.

The Bashir episode was an unwelcome distraction, helping feed the view that African leaders are a gang of outlaws who close ranks and don’t respect international law when its goes against one of them.

Alleged N8b currency fraud: Court returns eight accused persons to prison

A confident desire of an early bail for the eight bankers accused of an N8 billion fraud was dashed yesterday for the second time. The judge ordered that they should be returned to prison following failure by counsel to complete service of processes on one another before arguments for their bail could be taken.

Justice Adeyinka Faaj  of the Federal High Court, Ibadan took the action because prosecution and defence lawyers were yet to receive all counter and further affidavits in the two cases to set the stage for arguments for their bail applications.

They are to return to court on Thursday to argue applications for bail after all processes are expected to have been served on the counsel in the two cases heard yesterday.

Though the majority of defence counsel indicated their willingness to proceed with pending applications as well as to abandon their counter-affidavits to pave the way for argument for bail, Justice Faaj insisted that arguments for all applications for bail must be taken together.

He noted that hearing of some before others could be prejudicial to the rest since the charges emanated from the same transactions.

After the accused were arraigned last Wednesday, affidavits and counter affidavits were prepared and sent on Thursday and Friday. Consequently, the prosecution lawyers were only able to file their replies in court on Friday and could not reach all the defence counsel the same day. Some were only served in the courtroom yesterday.

The eight accused persons are among the 22 bankers being arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). They include six officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and commercial banks.

They were arraigned on a 28-count charge bordering on forgery, misrepresentation and self-enrichment as part of the N8 billion mutilated currency fraud at the CBN.

The others are concealing of property, fraudulently acquiring assets in excess of their legitimate and provable income and causing economic adversity to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The accused, the court heard, acquired assets in Nigeria and Pretoria, South Africa.

The CBN employees are Kolawole Babalola, Olaniran Adeola and Togun Kayode Phillips. Their alleged accomplices are Isiaq Akano, Ayodele Festus Adeyemi, Oyebamiji Hakeem, Ayodeji Alese and Ajiwe Adegoke.

The EFCC, in the charge, claimed that the CBN workers conspired with the First Bank employees to recycle N10 billion mutilated currency notes meant to be destroyed.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge. Request for bail for the eight persons was brought to the court yesterday.

Bukola Saraki elected Senate President

Bukola Saraki, a former governor of Kwara State, backed by minority senators of the All Progressives Congress and those of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has been elected the president of the eighth Senate.

Mr. Saraki of the All Progressives Congress, APC, defeated his party’s preferred candidate, Ahmed Lawan, to emerge the Senate president.

The election was presided over by the Clerk of the National Assembly. The election held while majority of his party members were meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the International Conference Center in Abuja, a meeting Saraki shunned.

He was nominated by Sani Yerima and seconded by Dino Melaye.

Mr. Saraki has been sworn into office.

Buhari and Vice set to declare assets

Bowing to public demand for the full disclosure of the contents of their asset declaration forms, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo have indicated that they would release the details of their declarations after verification by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the Presidency has said.

Buhari said the release would be in fulfillment of one of their campaign promises, in which his declared assets and those of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will be released to the public upon the completion of their verification by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).

The private declarations of assets by the two leaders has drawn flaks from across sections of Nigerians who demanded full disclosure of the contents of the asset forms submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau.

Their position was hinged on the principles of zero tolerance for corruption as espoused by Buhari before his election on March 28.

The Senior Special Assistant (Media and Publicity), Mal. Garba Shehu, who announced this in a statement on behalf of the President, yesterday, said: “The duly completed forms by both the President and the Vice President were submitted to the CCB on March 28, a clear day ahead of their inauguration.”

He said this statement was warranted by the need to clarify some suggestions that the President and the Vice-President may not, after all, declare their assets publicly.

He said: “While such public display of concern is appreciated and valued, it must be said that it is a little precipitate.

“As required by law, the declaration and submission of documents to the CCB have been made, but there still remains the aspect of verification, which the Bureau will have to conduct to authenticate the submissions made to it.

It is hoped that this process will be completed before the expiry of the 100-day deadline within which they said they would do this.

“In the circumstances, it is only after this verification exercise, and not before, that the declaration can be said to have been made and validated; and only after this, will the details be released to the public.

“There is no question at all that the President and the Vice President are committed to public declaration of their assets within the 100 days that they pledged during the presidential campaign.

“The President and the Vice President wish to thank Nigerians for their show of concern, and for the confidence they have shown in their leaders’ integrity, as evidenced by the high pedestal of uprightness and expectations on which they have placed them.”