President Bola Tinubu has approved a significant increase in the budget of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), raising its allocation from about ₦3 billion to nearly ₦20 billion.
The Chairman of the CCB, Dr Abubakar Bello, disclosed this on Sunday during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said the budgetary boost is aimed at overhauling Nigeria’s outdated asset declaration system and strengthening verification and enforcement mechanisms.
According to Bello, the increased funding will support major technological upgrades, improve the bureau’s working environment, enhance verification processes, and boost enforcement capacity.
He explained that upon assuming office, he discovered that asset declaration at the CCB was still largely manual, relying on paper forms that were costly to print, difficult to store, and challenging to analyse or verify.
“Public servants across ministries, departments and agencies constantly request tens of thousands of asset declaration forms, which the bureau has been unable to supply,” Bello said.
He added that the situation was compounded by the 2025 budget provision of only ₦70 million for printing forms, an amount capable of producing just 50,000 to 60,000 forms for over 4.5 million public servants nationwide.
To mitigate the challenge, Bello said the bureau adopted a temporary solution inspired by Kenya by uploading asset declaration forms on its website for download.
However, he noted that this only addressed availability and not the fundamental problem of a manual system.
Bello revealed that the CCB is now at an advanced stage of developing a fully digital asset declaration platform, following extensive stakeholder consultations. The platform is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2026.
He said the system will allow public servants to declare assets from anywhere in the world and will be directly linked to key databases, including the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Bank Verification Number (BVN) system, land registries and other government records to enable instant verification.
According to him, artificial intelligence will also be deployed to analyse asset declarations, compare net worth at the beginning and end of public service, and flag unexplained wealth or potential breaches of the Code of Conduct for further review.
Bello described the platform as a “game changer” in the fight against corruption.
As part of ongoing reforms, he said the bureau has begun inviting ministers, permanent secretaries and other senior officials for asset verification, stressing that “verification is not investigation.”
He disclosed that the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, personally appeared for asset verification, describing the move as a strong example of leadership by example.
The CCB chairman added that verification exercises have already led to interim forfeiture orders in cases where public servants failed to declare assets or could not explain their sources, including properties within and outside Nigeria.
Some recovered funds, he said, have been transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Bello warned that failure to declare assets or refusal to honour verification invitations could result in investigations and possible prosecution before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
He urged public servants to comply with the bureau’s guiding principle: “Declare or Forfeit.”
