Ndume said he had attempted to introduce some bills regarding unexplained wealth in the country but was thwarted by excuses.
The Senator representing Borno South in the 10th National Assembly, Ali Ndume, has called on President Bola Tinubu to sign an executive order on unexplained wealth by Nigerians.
The call by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker comes on the heels of a comment by a retired justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Musa Muhammed Datijjo, regarding the level of corruption in the nation’s judiciary.
For his part, Ndume believes there is a need for laws that will compel any individual with no verifiable source of wealth to explain themselves to the authorities. He noted that similar laws are operating in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world to tackle such issues.
He said these during an interview on Channels Television‘s Sunday Politics on Sunday, October 29, 2023.
Talking about his previous efforts to introduce a similar piece of legislature in Nigeria, the lawmaker said, “I have tried several times but you know, there were excuses here and there.”
He, therefore, proposed that the executive should lead the effort to make such laws while urging Tinubu to sign an executive order regarding that in the interim.
“I think the best way to get this across is when the bill comes from the executive or in the interim, the current president should sign an executive bill on unexplained wealth.”
Ndume stressed that the level of unexplained wealth in the country, especially among politicians and civil servants, remains alarming, and some laws are needed to combat that.
“I know of civil servants that live in houses that not only their income, their salaries, or their life pension – assuming they would live in this world for 90 years or 100 years – cannot buy.
“The same thing with some of our politicians especially the politically exposed persons like ministers, you find as you rightly said, some of them come to the National Assembly, and suddenly there is so much money,” he noted.
He called on Nigerians to demand better accountability from public officials while reiterating that politicians are public servants.
“The public are those that are supposed to put us on our toes to represent them and account for our actions,” the lawmaker added.
