The Code of Conduct Bureau says it has finished checking the asset declarations of a group of high-risk public officials, among them 19 ministers, 37 permanent secretaries, 20 agency heads and 32 others, as part of efforts to tighten accountability in public service.
Bureau Chairman Abdullahi Usman Bello disclosed this in Abuja at the graduation of the second cohort of Agora Policy’s Policy Writing Fellowship and the launch of its Local Governance Accountability Portal. He said the bureau’s online asset and liabilities declaration system was now fully built and ready for testing, and would hold the declaration records of all public servants.
Bello said the bureau had also investigated at least five local government chairmen over the use of council funds, secured the forfeiture of several assets including a property in London, and recently arraigned the chief of staff to a state governor before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
He praised the new portal, which offers free access to council allocations from 1999 onwards along with council profiles and the names of elected officials, describing it as a tool for grassroots transparency. Presidential adviser Hadiza Bala Usman, in a keynote, argued that Nigeria’s problem was not a shortage of ideas but the difficulty of turning them into institutions and measurable gains for citizens.
Agora Policy founder Waziri Adio said the country could not pursue good governance while ignoring local councils, noting that the 774 local governments draw substantial resources, with the smallest monthly FAAC allocation around N500 million and Alimosho receiving N4.9 billion for January 2026 alone. He said the portal was meant to arm citizens, civic groups and the media with evidence to hold local leaders to account.
Figures from the portal show FAAC transfers to local governments climbing from N167 billion in 2000 to N5.46 trillion in 2025, with the steepest rises between 2023 and 2025. Between May 1999 and February 2026 councils received a cumulative N38.79 trillion, with Lagos topping the table at N2.69 trillion and Bayelsa lowest at N459.82 billion.
