GLITZ TV
The Code of Conduct Bureau is one of the National Executive Bodies established by Section 153 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,1999.
The mandate of the Code of Conduct Bureau is to
to establish and maintain high standard in the conduct of government business and enforce the code of conduct for public officers as contained in Part I of the Third and Fifth schedules to the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria..
Every public and civil servants in the public services of the Federal,States and local tiers of Governments are mandatorily required to declare their assets three months after assumption of office and after leaving their positions.
When I was the Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property from July 2017 to August 2019, I tried to establish a collaborative and inter-agency cooperation with the Code of Conduct Bureau taking into account it central role in the fight against corruption in the public sector but the forces that are determined that the Bureau remain lethargic resisted and spurned by efforts.
I despatched more than fifty cases of public servants that failed to declare their assets or those who aquire massive assets in the public service but refused to declare them to the Bureau for investigation.
I paid a courtesy visit to the Chairman and his commissioners with tonnes of files of deserving cases of public servants that have breached the provisions of the Code of Conduct provisions of the Constitution and hand them over to the Chairman.
However, after I was suspended, the Bureau turned a blind eye to the investigation of these cases.
If the federal government wish to turn the Bureau to a potent and effective anti corruption agency, it must reposition it by appointed hard-nosed officials to man the Bureau and take it out of the supervision of the office of Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
The Code of Conduct Bureau has remained underdeveloped and stuck in administrative lethargic and inepititude even though she is one of the oldest anti corruption agencies in the country.
It was set up in 1979 when the 1979 constitution came into force.
Accordingly, the bureau is about 43 years old but has no record to show for all these years of its existence .
Endemic corruption has continue to haunt the country and retard its progress.
Public and civil servants keep on acquiring massive assets which they cannot account for.
Investigation of the assets of public officials is the most effective and potents way reducing corruption in the public sector to the barest minimum.
@ Okoi Obono-Obla
