President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has approved a significant increase in the budget of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), raising it from approximately ₦3 billion to nearly ₦20 billion, in a move aimed at strengthening transparency and accountability in public service.
Dr. Abubakar Bello, the CCB Chairman, disclosed the development in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja.
According to Bello, the expanded funding will be used to modernise Nigeria’s asset declaration system, enhance verification and enforcement, and deploy technology to improve the bureau’s efficiency.
He explained that the existing asset declaration process is largely manual and paper-based, making it costly, slow, and difficult to manage. With over 4.5 million public servants nationwide, previous budgetary provisions, such as approximately ₦70 million for printing forms in 2025, were grossly inadequate, producing only 50,000 to 60,000 forms.
Although downloadable forms were later introduced to ease access, Bello said this did not address the core challenge of manual processing and verification.
Online Asset Declaration Platform Coming in 2026
Bello revealed that a fully digital asset declaration platform is currently under development and is expected to go live in the first quarter of 2026. The system will allow public officers to declare assets online from anywhere in the world and will be integrated with key government databases, including the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Bank Verification Number (BVN) system, land registries, and other relevant records.
He added that artificial intelligence will be deployed to analyse declarations, compare asset growth over time, and flag unexplained wealth or potential breaches of the Code of Conduct for further review.
The CCB chairman noted that verification exercises have already commenced for ministers, permanent secretaries, and other senior officials, stressing that verification does not automatically amount to an investigation. However, he warned that failure to declare assets or refusal to honour verification requests could lead to investigations and possible prosecution before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
Bello disclosed that some recovered funds have already been transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria and urged public servants to comply with the bureau’s guiding principle: “Declare or forfeit.”
The budget increase aligns with the Federal Government’s broader push to strengthen compliance, transparency, and ethical standards in public service. In August, the government also launched a virtual interactive platform to improve understanding and enforcement of the Code of Conduct for public officers nationwide.
