Tinubu Approves N20bn to Strengthen CCB Fight
By Wellington Jopelo
President Bola Tinubu has approved a major boost in funding for the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), raising its budget from about ₦3 billion to nearly ₦20 billion in a move aimed at strengthening Nigeria’s anti-corruption framework.
The CCB Chairman, Abubakar Bello, said the increase would help modernise the bureau’s operations, especially its asset declaration system, which he described as outdated and largely manual. He explained that for years, asset declarations relied on paper forms that were costly to print, difficult to store and hard to verify.
Bello noted that millions of public servants across ministries, departments and agencies depend on these forms, yet previous budget provisions made it impossible to meet demand. In one year, only about ₦70 million was set aside for printing, an amount he said could barely serve a fraction of the over 4.5 million public officers nationwide.
According to him, the new funding will allow the bureau to invest in technology, improve staff working conditions, strengthen verification processes and expand enforcement capacity. A key part of the reform is the planned use of artificial intelligence to analyse asset declarations, compare changes in net worth over time and flag suspicious or unexplained wealth for further review.
As part of ongoing reforms, the CCB has begun verifying the assets of top government officials, including ministers and permanent secretaries. Bello stressed that verification is different from investigation, adding that senior officials complying with the process send a strong message of accountability.
He disclosed that the exercise has already resulted in interim forfeiture orders in cases where assets were not declared or could not be properly explained, with some recovered funds transferred to the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Bello warned that public servants who fail to declare their assets or ignore verification requests risk investigation and prosecution before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. He said the bureau has temporarily made asset declaration forms available online for download, but admitted this only addresses access, not the deeper problem of a manual system.
He revealed that work is at an advanced stage on a fully digital asset declaration platform expected to go live in the first quarter of 2026. The system will allow public servants to declare assets from anywhere and will be linked to key government databases, including company records, tax systems, bank verification data and land registries.
Describing the new platform as a turning point, Bello said it will make asset verification faster, more accurate and harder to evade, reinforcing the bureau’s guiding principle: declare your assets or risk forfeiture.