The Foundation for Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Crusade, FHRACC, Sunday, in Warri, Delta State, indicated that it may take obligatory legal steps to induce President Muhammadu Buhari to proclaim his health status and money spent to care for himself in the United Kingdom.
National president of the rights group, Alaowei C. Ebikonbowei Esq. in a statement, said: “We are calling on the government to do what is right in the eyes of the law; otherwise we may take some necessary legal steps to compel it to do the right thing.
President Buhari swore an oath to protect the laws of the land and not to breach them with impunity.”
According to FHRACC, “President Mohammadu Buhari as a public figure is answerable to the people who foot his bills. The President is being funded by the taxpayers’ money and thus he is under obligation, both in law and under all known conventional practices, to be accountable to the people who gave him their mandates.”
“It is safe to demand that Buhari should declare his health status to Nigerians together with the money he has spent to treat himself in the United Kingdom. Refusal of the government to disclose the money spent on the President’s health is the greatest disservice to Nigerians.
“We are baffled with gross consternation over Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s sermon that the money spent on Buhari’s health will not be disclosed for security reasons. We believe that there is no security threat for Buhari to declare his health status known to Nigerians and or furnish us with the money he has spent on his health.
“Concealing such vital information from the prying public is to say the least corruption itself. If security should be an excuse from disclosing public money the government has spent on public servants, then the law can also preclude public office holders from declaring their assets as required by the Code of Conduct Bureau Act,” it said.
The NGO asserted: “Government should not give flimsy excuses in informing Nigerians of what Buhari does with the public funds entrusted in his care. Now that the government’s slogan is to rid public institutions of corruption, it should not be seen committing an act that harbours corruption.”
“The government cannot be flouting the relevant provisions of the laws of the land, especially the Freedom of Information Act and the 1999 Constitution. It’ is for public good, public safety and public morality that Mr. President inform Nigerians of the details of his health and how much he has spent to treat himself. This is the demonstration of the government’s sincerity in upholding its much chorused “Change Must Begin with Me” new national orientation that it has introduced to Nigerians,” the group added.
