The constitutional crisis created over the controversial suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria of Nigeria (CJN), Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen, over allegations of not fully declaring his assets has made Afenifere to remind President Buhari to make his assets declaration public.
Leader of Afenifere, Chief R F Fasoranti, in a statement he personally signed on Tuesday, said: “It’s now 4 months to the end of the four -year tenure of Mr President and this pledge has not been fulfilled.”
He recalled that “then General Buhari in 2014 in a document titled, “I pledge to Nigeria” also said that all his political appointees would only earn salaries and allowances as prescribed by the Revenue and Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission.
Fasoranti quoted Buhari as having said: “I pledge to publicly declare my assets and liabilities, encourage all my appointees to publicity declare their assets and liabilities as a pre-condition for appointment.”
However, “Instead of doing what he pledged, Presidential aides have been giving all manners of untenable excuses in the last 3 and half years. This is a moral burden as it is said that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands and that examples are better than precepts,” Fasoranti said.
He cautioned that a leader must not set for others standards that are very difficult for him to meet in the order of “do as I say and not as I do”.
“The jeopardy of President Buhari anti-corruption war has really been one set of rules for the goose and another set for the gander,” he added.
Afenifere therefore asked the President to immediately make his assets declaration form public so Nigerians can hold him as a man of his words, saying: “Such a power of example sets greater tone for good conduct in society than a thousand arbitrariness in the name of fighting corruption.”
