CCB probes ministers’ assets, investigates five LG chairmen for ethics breaches

…As Agora Policy launches local governance, policy transparency portals

The Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) is verifying the asset declarations of ministers and other senior public officials while investigating at least five local government chairmen for alleged ethics violations, reflecting a broader push to strengthen accountability across different levels of government.

Abdullahi Usman Bello, chairman of the bureau, disclosed on Thursday that the asset verification exercise has so far covered 19 ministers, 37 permanent secretaries, 20 heads of government agencies and 32 other senior public officials.

Speaking at the close-out ceremony of Agora Policy’s second Policy Writing Fellowship and the unveiling of the Local Governance Accountability (LGA) Portal and Policy Registry in Abuja, Bello said the bureau had also reached an advanced stage in investigations involving five local government chairmen.

“As part of our enforcement at the CCB, the Code of Conduct Bureau is presently investigating at least five local government chairmen and we have reached an advanced stage,” Bello said. “We have seen a lot of breaches of code of conduct principles in the process, including conflict of interest and other violations of code of conduct.”

The development comes amid growing scrutiny of governance and public spending at the local government level following last year’s Supreme Court ruling that strengthened the financial autonomy of Nigeria’s 774 local councils.

Bello said the bureau’s enforcement efforts had also resulted in the forfeiture of several assets, including a property in London, while numerous cases had been referred to the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

“Just yesterday we arraigned the chief of staff to a state governor before the tribunal,” he said. “These actions demonstrate our firm resolve to hold public officers accountable regardless of their position or status.”

He also announced that the bureau’s Online Asset and Liabilities Declaration System had been fully developed and was ready for deployment and testing. According to him, the platform will serve as the central database for the asset declarations of public servants across the country.

The anti-corruption agency’s disclosure came at the launch of two digital platforms by policy think tank Agora Policy aimed at improving public access to governance information and strengthening evidence-based policymaking.

The first platform, the Local Governance Accountability Portal, provides access to historical and current data on allocations to local governments from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), profiles of councils, information on elected officials and data visualisation tools.

The second, the Policy Registry, is designed as a searchable repository of policy documents, reports, strategies and governance resources.

The launch of the two platforms comes as Nigerians increasingly seek improvement in transparency in public finance management and better participation in governance.

Waziri Adio, founder of Agora Policy, said the platforms were created to address those longstanding gaps in transparency and public access to governance information.
“If we are really interested in good governance and development in this country, we can’t continue to ignore what is going on in our local councils,” Adio said.

According to him, local governments receive significant public resources but remain among the least scrutinised institutions in the country.

“Enormous resources are pouring into our local governments, especially in the last three years,” he said. “But our local governments are almost a black hole, and as a result where government should be closest to the people, where government should be felt the most, is where it is absent the most.”

Adio said the portal was designed to empower citizens, journalists, researchers and civil society organisations to monitor public resources and demand accountability using verifiable data.

The unveiling of the platforms formed part of activities marking the graduation of the second cohort of Agora Policy’s Policy Writing Fellowship, a programme supported by the MacArthur Foundation to strengthen policy analysis and evidence-driven decision-making in Nigeria.

More than 800 applicants competed for 25 places in the second cohort, with 22 fellows completing the four-month programme. Their research papers covered topics ranging from artificial intelligence and air quality to food security, job creation and industrial policy.

Hadiza Bala Usman, special sdviser to President Bola Tinubu on Policy Coordination and Head of the Central Results Delivery Coordination Unit, said access to information and evidence-based policymaking were critical to improving governance outcomes and public trust.

“The Local Governance Accountability Portal and the Policy Registry are not merely digital platforms,” she said in her keynote speech. “They are instruments for deepening the relationship between information, participation and accountability.”

Usman said Nigeria’s challenge was often not a shortage of ideas, plans or policy proposals, but the difficulty of translating those ideas into measurable outcomes for citizens.

“Nigeria does not suffer from a shortage of ideas,” she said. “The more difficult task has always been to convert ideas into priorities, priorities into institutions, institutions into implementation, and implementation into measurable improvements in the lives of citizens.”

She noted that the federal government was implementing reforms across public finance, revenue mobilisation, social investment, infrastructure, education and agriculture at a time of heightened citizen expectations and fiscal pressures, making policy coordination and performance tracking increasingly important.

According to her, a National Policy Coordination Framework has been developed to improve alignment, accountability and coherence across government institutions and ensure that policies are linked to clear deliverables and measurable outcomes.

“The answer cannot lie in policy statements alone,” Usman said. “It must lie in disciplined implementation, institutional coordination, credible data, transparent communication and citizen-centred evaluation.”

She argued that democratic governance and accountability is strengthened when citizens have access to information and are able to assess government performance using evidence rather than speculation.

“Evidence-based policy is not only about improving administrative efficiency,” she said. “It is also about strengthening democratic life.”

The presidential adviser also stressed the importance of local governance, noting that many public services most directly affecting citizens—including primary healthcare, basic education, sanitation and community infrastructure—are delivered at the grassroots level.

“If service delivery fails at the local level, citizens experience governance as distant, ineffective or absent,” she said.

Usman described the LGA Portal as a tool that could make local governments more visible and enable citizens, researchers and civic groups to engage more meaningfully with information about public spending and service delivery.

She also highlighted the significance of the Policy Registry, saying one of the weaknesses of Nigeria’s policy environment was the loss of institutional memory, where reports, policy documents and lessons from previous reforms often become inaccessible or forgotten.

A central repository for policy documents, she said, would help policymakers, researchers and journalists build on previous work, reduce duplication and promote continuity in governance.

Also speaking, Ola Olukoyede, Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) described the LGA portal as a potentially transformative tool for public accountability.

“The initiative, for me, is a game changer as it promises to lift the veil of opacity that forecloses scrutiny of public expenditures at this tier of government,” Olukoyede said.
“For decades, releases to local governments from the federation account, management of internally generated revenues and expenditures by the councils have been under a mighty cloak of secrecy.”

Represented by Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC Director of Public Affairs Olukoyede said greater public access to information on local government finances could strengthen citizen oversight and improve accountability in the management of public resources.