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President Muhammadu Buhari never promised to make his assets public. This is according to his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.
Adesina said the issue of public declaration of assets cannot be credited to Buhari but the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He said Buhari has declared his assets in compliance with the law and may decide to make them public when verification is concluded by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB).
Adesina who spoke in an interview with Kayode Ogundamisi, a social commentator, explained: “You need to get his words right, go and check all that the president said during the campaign, in no place would you see it attributed to him as a person.
“But then there is a document by his party, the All Progressives Congress, saying he would declare publicly, so we need to set that right, it’s a declaration by his party.
“Now what does the law require? The law requires public officers to declare their assets; he has done that. But his party has a document that says he would do it publicly.
“There is a procedure for that, and the procedure is that you first declare, code of conduct (bureau) would verify and after that, if you want to make it public, the onus lies on you to say release. The procedure has to be followed.”
According to Adesina, the decision to release or not release the asset for public consumption would be taken by the president when verification is done.
“He has declared, and it is deposited with the code of conduct bureau and they need to verify. Let’s come to that time when code of conduct would say we have completed verification.”