Still on Buhari’s asset declaration

Why are Nigerians made to wait for the Code of Conduct Bureau to verify assets that both President Muhammadu Buhari and his deputy own and know that they own? Now, this is not only confusing, it stands logic on its head.

Making a promise to publicly declare your assets is about committing to stretch the bounds of regulation beyond the requirements of standing rules! That is self-regulation.

The Code of Conduct verification is an extant regulation. Both activities are not in conflict, neither of the activities should therefore be dependent on the other. I will explain.

The relationship of extant regulation and self-regulation in corporate governance:

Taxation is for instance a constitutional requirement of any business enterprise, and so, a business is required to pay a percentage of its profit as tax. A business will be in breach of the law if it does not pay its taxes. On the other hand, corporate social investment is based on the organisation’s values and philosophy. An organisation can, out of self-regulation, separate a percentage of its profit and commit the same to corporate social investments.

The organisation will not be in breach of any law if it does not commit a percentage of its profit to such corporate social investment in one year, but its action will be inconsistent of its declared values. So, the organisation may hold on to its commitment to corporate social investment, more out of moral suasion rather than compulsion.

The organisation can therefore not use taxation as an excuse for not committing itself to corporate social investments as both activities are not in conflict and are not thus dependent on each other.

How does this relate to the Buhari/Osinbajo asset declaration issue?

No one forced President Buhari to make an open declaration of his assets. He probably intends to mirror certain values by so doing. Declaring assets publicly is thus about moral suasion and not a constitutional requirement.

Hence, I do not see the need to wait for a verification by the CCB to declare his assets publicly. The fact that the assets have been declared publicly does not stop the CCB from doing its verification. Both do not stand in the way of each other. Open asset declaration is self-regulation, while the Code of Conduct declaration is extant regulation.

Bolaji Okusaga,

Ikeja GRA,

Lagos State