THE Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP)  has gone to court to challenge claim by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB)  that it could not disclose details of asset declarations filed by successive presidents and state governors since 1999.

CCB last week refused a Freedom of Information request by SERAP, stating that: “Asset declaration form is private information.”

The bureau claimed that disclosing the asset forms “would offend the right to privacy of presidents and state governors.”

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has also described CCB’s argument as illogical.

In the suit filed at a Federal High Court in Lagos on Friday, SERAP argued that asset declarations of presidents and state governors submitted to the CCB are public documents.

The organisation maintained that public interest in disclosure of the details of asset declarations it sought clearly outweighs any claim of protection of the privacy of presidents and state governors, insisting that they are public officers entrusted with the duty to manage public funds, among other public functions.