There is confusion has among officials at the Code of Conduct Bureau after records relating to the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu’s asset declaration reportedly disappeared from the storage facility that has held them for years.
This was after the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) recently requested for the document, to aid in an ongoing investigation.
Three officials familiar with the matter told newsmen that the bureau started looking for Tinubu’s asset filings after the EFCC requested copies as part of an ongoing investigation into the former Lagos governor’s financial and material possessions.
Several offices have been rummaged at the bureau as officials scrambled to produce the documents for EFCC’s use but all to no avail.
“We have searched for the case file everywhere because we want to comply with the lawful request made by the EFCC,” a top management official at the bureau told the Gazette. “We have not been able to find the documents either at the main head office or the annexe office in Asokoro.”
Another official who interacted with one of the mid-level staffers tasked with finding the documents revealed that the matter had become “terribly embarrassing” and a cause for unending worry at the bureau, which is the primary anti-corruption agency in charge of collecting and keep assets of schedule government officials before and after assumption of office.
“We cannot find the asset documents at all,” the official said. “We cannot even find photocopies that we can certify for the EFCC.”
Tinubu was the governor of Lagos from 1999-2007. Officials said he declared his asset when he assumed office and when he concluded his second term in May 2007.
Anti-graft agencies had previously investigated and charged Mr. Tinubu on the basis of the documents in 2011, but the Code of Conduct Tribunal, which primarily hears cases brought by the bureau, dismissed the matter on technical grounds, leaving the merit of the case floating for nearly a decade. No further charges had been preferred against the ruling party chief ever since.
But as he reportedly prepares to seek Nigeria’s presidency in 2023, anti-corruption officials told the Gazette they’re now convinced by “institutional memory” that Mr. Tinubu’s asset filings were incriminating and must revisit the matter to prevent “another rogue” from assuming power in a country still reeling from decades of infamy.
“His asset declaration form will not be the only reason for us to arrest and charge him,” an EFCC official said under anonymity over the weekend. “But our detectives and lawyers working on the case said it is likely to be seriously incriminating.”
Both CCB and EFCC officials who spoke with the Gazette for this story urged strict protection of their identities, citing especially their active engagement status and a lack of clearance to speak to journalists on a matter still under investigation. The officials’ personal details have been withheld in accordance with the Gazette’s policy on anonymous sources.
Although the EFCC has yet to escalate the disappearance of Mr. Tinubu’s asset filings to the presidency, concerns have nonetheless been flaring amongst top officials of the CCB, an official said. While some officials believed the document might have been stolen by an intruder, others blamed “an inside job” for the development, citing its security.
“Tinubu’s file is one of the VVIP files that is kept with either the chairman or someone he trusts immensely,” an official said. “So claiming that it was stolen from an outsider at the time the EFCC is requesting for it is just so convenient.”
The official said an internal investigation has yet to commence about the disappearance, but the EFCC might be forced to report the CCB, which is a department under the federal cabinet secretary’s office.
“We don’t know how many palms have been oiled to make a sensitive document disappeared from our vault,” the CCB chief said. “We are not going to blame Tinubu for it because he did not come in here to snatch it from us, some people were used.”
The EFCC first wrote to the CCB requesting Mr. Tinubu’s asset declaration details in September, but the anti-graft agency was forced to repeat the request when the asset fraud office could not produce Mr. Tinubu’s case file.
Since then, the CCB has not been able to comply with EFCC’s request, effectively stalling the case, according to officials at CCB and EFCC.
Still, anti-graft officials said they are treating the file drama more as a temporary setback for concerned agencies than a day of reckoning averted for Mr. Tinubu himself.
“We take all corruption cases very seriously,” an official said. “So we will find a way out of every setback that we are likely to encounter before the prosecution stage.”
