Senator says many politicians make false declaration of assets

Sen. Femi Okunrounmu, Chairman of the 2014 National Conference Convocation Committee, said on Saturday that more than 90 per cent of politicians in the country were guilty of false declaration of assets.

Okunrounmu stated this while interacting with newsmen on the sidelines of 80th birthday celebration of O’dua Peoples Congress (OPC), Dr. Frederick Fasehun, in Ikeja, Lagos.

He said that if anybody had done anything that was against the law or Constitution, the person should be called to account.

According to him, it is good and part of the fight against Corruption, but that fight should be holistic.

"It should cover all the people who are guilty, not just target a few individuals.

"Ninety per cent of politicians declare assets falsely, so the law should go after all the people that are guilty of such false declaration of assets, try them and bring them to justice.

"They shouldn't just target one or two people," he said.

On the National Confab, Okunrounmu alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had always opposed it.

"May be, the Constitution is favourable to some parts of the North; many northern APC leaders have always opposed a national confab.

"May be, one can understand why they oppose a confab, but those who know how the current Constitution came to being know that it was fashioned by successive military rulers, mostly from the north,'' he alleged.

He said that the southern wing of the APC, led by Sen. Ahmed Tinubu, had always agitated for a national conference, but were opposed to the 2014 confab ``for political reasons''.

On the delay in cabinet formation by President Muhammadu Buhari, the former confab convocation committee chairman said that there was no provision for the president to administer Nigeria without a cabinet.

"Even though there is no specification on the number of days within which he must send the names of ministers, any governance without ministers is governance as sole administrator which is not provided for in the Constitution,'' he said.