“..The person declared the property when the property was not in existence”
The Executive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mr, Ola Olukoyede has disclosed that many public officers are now perfecting the antics of anticipatory declaration of assets to justify their intended stealing of public funds and other acts of corruption.
According to a press release signed by Dele Oyewale, Head, Media & Publicity of EFCC, Olukoyede stated this in Abuja on Tuesday, August 12, 2025 while delivering a goodwill message at the launch of the Virtual Tool on the Code of Conduct for Public Officers organized by the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB in collaboration with the Technical Unit on Good Governance and Anti-corruption Reforms, TUGAR.
Explaining how anticipatory asset declaration is done, he disclosed that, “there is an investigation we carried out and we discovered something not too strange that proves how criminally smart some of our politically exposed persons carry out some of the various activities we investigate them for. I asked my boys to get the CCB form because there is something we were not clear about and we discovered one of the very big properties valued over N3billion that the person declared in the CCB form carried an address different from the address of the location of the property. I felt something was awry here, we decided to dig further and after more interrogation, we discovered that the person declared the property when the property was not in existence” .
He urged the leadership of CCB to take note of such criminality and intensify investigation through innovative ways to curtail corruption,
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi pointed out that the bedrock of public service is adherence to standards and ethics of service. He applauded the virtual tool designed by the CCB as a significant milestone in the digitization and technological investigation of public conduct, stating that it will promote preventive compliance and awareness. He enjoined public servants to embrace the new tool for enhanced conduct in public service.
The Head of Service, Mrs Didi Esther Walson- Jack stressed that, “We must leverage on technology to solve problems. It is faster, smarter and more transparent. Without conduct and ethics no reform will last. Ethical governance is not optional. The benefit of this tool is that it is accessible, easy to use, cost effective and promotes transparency that enables tracking and compliance”.
In his Opening Speech, Chairman of Code of Conduct Bureau, Abdullahi Usman Bello explained that the tool will make public officers to be accountable and easy to use.
“The tool will ensure that public servants carry out their duties in high esteem and educate them on the step to step rules and regulations that guides them” , he said.