Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has threatened to sue a website that listed him as one of Africa’s 10 richest leaders.
Richestlifestyle.com ranked Mr Jonathan sixth on its list, claiming his net worth was about $100m.
A statement from the presidency said Mr Jonathan’s inclusion on the list had “no factual basis” and was an attempt to portray him as corrupt.
The president has been criticised for not declaring his assets publicly.
In 2012, an official from the Nigerian watchdog body, the Code of Conduct Bureau, was quoted by Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper as saying that the president had declared his assets – but was not obliged by law to make the declaration public.
The statement from the presidency on Wednesday said there had been “no significant variation in the totality” of Mr Jonathan’s assets as declared to the bureau in 2011.
This figure, the statement said, was “a very, very far cry from $100m figure now being bandied about by richestlifestyle.com and other irresponsible, copy-cat publications”.
The statement said that Mr Jonathan had “regularly declared his assets as required by Nigerian laws” since 1999, when he first held public office.
“He has had no personal income since 1999 other than his official remuneration as deputy governor, governor, vice president, acting president and president which are matters of public record,” the statement said.
The website would face legal action unless it retracted the article and offered an apology, the statement said.
Since the statement was issued, the site has been updated, removing the figure for Mr Jonathan’s net worth but keeping him in joint sixth position on the rich list. There is a link to another article evaluating his finances.
Credit: BBC
