…Explains civil servants’ culpability
From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
Outgoing Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, has explained how lack of administrative experience led some heads of agencies, particularly academics into corrupt acts.
Owasanoye who gave the explanation in Abuja during a programme tagged ‘Behavioural Change and Conference Exhibition 2023,’ however said not all Nigerians are corrupt.
Owasanoye specifically recalled that those in the academics who headed one agency or another, became ICPC’s customers within one year as a result of one infraction or the other.
“And you could see that many of them, walking blind, lack of administrative experience because they are misled, they have not read circulars and guidelines that say you can do this, you can do this, you can’t do that.
“Somebody who has a global reputation, who won consultancy, earns $20,000, why does he want to come and steal money from an MDA? Except somebody has set a banana peel for him to enable them do what they want to do and they need to put him in that trap. And then, if he refuses, then they will orchestrate a petition to ICPC, to EFCC, then the man will come and then, they embarrass him,” Owasanoye said.
Owasanoye further said most of the people who indulged in such acts were faceless civil servants who led the heads of agencies into default in the first place.
Owasanoye shared an experience with a head of an agency who wanted to embark on an international trip and was told by the agency that his estacode was $900 instead of $600.
“And he said he had remembered hearing that somebody told him that it was $600. So, there was this dispute between him and his officers. Since it was not resolved, he borrowed money from his son and took his trip. He didn’t take the money,” Owasanoye disclosed.
Owasanoye further said upon return to the country, the person in question went to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation to check and realised his estacode was $600 per day.
“He went back to his agency. Can you show me where it says my estacode is $900?
“Of course, he fought and got rid of the DFA. And the DFA wanted to rope him in so that they could continue to do what they were doing before he came. And since he came and had this anti-corruption agenda, upright, they decided to set a trap for him so that they will seal his mouth once and for all,” Owasanoye further disclosed.
Earlier, Owasanoye said based on real life experience, he believed the conversation on anti-corruption interventions in Nigeria needed to start from the most important factor in corruption and anti-corruption, that is, the people.
He added that from his experience in leading the anti-corruption fight at the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) and the ICPC, he could tell categorically that not all Nigerians are corrupt.
“At one of the recent Policy Dialogues organised by the ICPC, two very vocal participants boisterously, but erroneously maintained that Nigerians who are not corrupt are those who have not had the opportunity to abuse, or collude in the abuse, of public office, authority or position. The error in this kind of sophistry is apparent.
“This erroneous belief by relatively few people that all Nigerians are corrupt can be considered in the light of the traditional anti-corruption interventions in Nigeria and the recent efforts towards expanding the focus of anti-corruption interventions to include the behavioural change approach,” Owasanoye also said.
Speaking earlier, the General Overseer, Palace of Priests Assembly (PPA), Abuja, Otive Igbuzor, said the problem of corruption is a global one.
He stated that over the years, several scholars, development workers, activists, politicians, international organizations, public affairs commentators and the general public have given attention to the problem of corruption and its attendant effects on society, adding that the problem is not new to humankind even though it has reached unprecedented proportions in recent years.
“Over the years, there has been a lot of focus on how to mitigate the impact of corruption. Strategies, programmes and agencies have been put in place to address the problem of corruption. But the challenge remains. Despite the plethora of legislations and agencies fighting corruption in the country, corruption has remained widespread and pervasive because of failure to utilize universally accepted and tested strategies; disconnect between posturing of leaders and their conduct; lack of concrete sustainable anti-corruption programming and failure to locate the anti-corruption struggle within a broader struggle to transform society,” Igbuzor said.