From Okwe Obi, Abuja
To mark this year’s Anti-Corruption Day,
Country Director, Accountability Lab Nigeria, Friday Odeh, has advocated the promotion of good morals, for the betterment of Nigeria, especially in the civil service.
Odeh stated this when the organisation, honoured 5 civil servants who have lived above board by demonstrating integrity in the discharge of their duties.
The theme of the Integrity Icon Award Night, was: ‘Naming and Faming Honest Government Officials’ partly sponsored by Luminate, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation.and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The recipients were: Catherine Ogunjebi, Lois Akut, Samuel Ogundare, Wode Seiyefa, and Ogechukwu Nkwuda.
He said: “Basically for civil servants working across MDAs across the country, they are the ones whom we have identified today to name and fame. Five of them from over 2,500 nominations which we have received nationwide.
“The choice of civil servants, they are the ones that do the work when it comes to service delivery for citizens. If you go to any MDAs, they are the ones whom you will interact with.
“So, for us is how do you rate Civil servants who serve the public. Meaning, how do you ensure that we as citizens are getting the best and the dividend of democracy from these civil servants?
“I am not sure we will get this from Ministers or policyholders but directly if I want to get my driver’s license, I will deal with civil servants, if I want to get my international passport, so that is why we have that force.”
Also, National Coordinator, SERVICOM, Nnena Akajemeli, said the event should be a morale booster for others to be upright and hardworking.
Akajemeli said: “The bottom line of this is raising and praising those who excel at their duty post. They are painstakingly going through filtering out saints from sinners.
“They have worked very hard through picking out the people who have served with huge integrity; people who did ordinary things in extraordinary way and so when this is done and people are rewarded and applauded and commended for standing out in their organization, it sends a huge positive message to the rest of the members of such MDAs across the nation.
“It helps us institutionalize health competition amongst the service providers and this is done without bias from the highest CEOs to the lowest serving officers.
“For those who stand out they are raised and praised and they are picked as ordinary people and made celebrities and champions.”
A recipient, Ogunjebi, said: “There are times when you see your colleague with a new vehicle or even new cloth or they are able to buy things from the mall and there are times when you can’t buy them because your salary has not been paid and you don’t know how to sort yourself out and yet you’re able to stand out there.
“There was a time I had only N2000 on me and someone was offering to give me N200,000 over a case and I had to turn it down not because I had so much but because I believed integrity is not just about knowing the right thing but in doing the right thing.”