The return to civilian rule in 1999 gave Nigerians a glimmer of hope after a prolonged military era with unquestionable power that brooked no dissent even in the face of corruption and impunity. By year 2000, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had emerged to tackle the monster of corruption. Thus began the advent of an era that people can make demands of their leaders, with corrupt tendencies curtailed and illegally acquired wealth questioned.
The government of President Muhammadu Buhari, which came in a blaze of glory, because of his no-nonsense past, has improved and made the work of ICPC even easier and better, and further strengthened its core mandates of “investigation and prosecution of corruption (enforcement), prevention and public enlightenment against the ills of corruption”. The President aptly captured the extent of the rot with his famous quote: “If we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”.
Not surprisingly, within the last five years, the government has initiated new programmes or improved on existing ones to reinforce transparency and accountability. Some of these measures include platforms like Treasury Single Account, Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, enforcement of BVN, NIN and the whistle blower initiative.
The latest of such reforms is the National Ethics and Integrity Policy (NEIP) anchored by the ICPC in partnership with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, National Orientation Agency, faith-based organisations, traditional institutions and the Civil Society. Surely the unveiling of NEIP, which seeks to expand the frontiers of the mandate of ICPC, is a befitting milestone to mark the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the foremost anti-corruption agency.
The journey toward developing a policy on ethics and integrity, recalls the ICPC chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, started in 2014 and came to fruition this year, with the main objective of enhancing transparency and accountability in public places and private sector in line with global best practices. The policy is expected to restore public trust and confidence in governance; foster a change of attitude; restore core values of honesty, transparency, accountability and improve understanding; increase the commitment and participation of citizens in the anti-corruption war, thus underscoring its imperative. Apart from decline in national values, which NEIP will hopefully reverse, citizens have obligations to function as watchdog on government and take responsibility to protect social cohesion and collective national interest.
One of the cardinal objectives of the NEIP is for citizens to change their narrow view of corruption from the prism of politics, religion and ethnic lenses that result in violence, insecurity, intolerance and mistrust. Obviously you cannot have stability in the polity and a secure nation if corruption is allowed to thrive to this low level. Conversely, if funds meant for health, education and security are mismanaged or diverted, it can boomerang on citizens including relations of the corrupt. This is manifest in poor public hospitals and insecurity, for example.
Generally, there is trust deficit between the citizenry and the government. It is an age-long perception; a notion that everyone in government, especially political appointees, is a thief. The NEIP, which was approved by the Federal Executive Council in August, is invaluable to guide “the good and ethical conduct of the Nigerian citizenry”, in the words of Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. A quick glance at the voluminous policy document is a revelation in value reorientation.
For example, the “Objectives of the value of human dignity are to create respect and equal treatment of all persons within the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to affirm a sense of national belonging for all the citizens of the country. These objectives will engender respect for all persons,l ensure loyalty and patriotism and contribute to the achievement of state policy.
Therefore, under the NEIP “every Nigerian shall have the right to: respect for their individual worth and dignity; participate fully, without encumbrances, in the life of the society; have a say in the services that affect them, including participating in decisions concerning the types of assistance provided and the way it is provided. Furthermore, persons can refuse services (and such refusal shall not affect or prejudice any future access to same or other services); privacy and confidentiality (except for compelling moral or legal reasons, e.g. child protection, under legislation or court injunction); see any information held about them by an agency of government except prohibited or prevented by law; express grievances and seek redress without fear of reprisals, intimidation or discrimination; regard as unacceptable conduct on the part of any other person, words or actions that are intended to be, or that are reasonably foreseen to be discriminatory, hate crimes, threats, intimidation, or harassment; no business shall place profits ahead of human dignity, either through unsafe working conditions and poor wages for employees or through the neglect of its responsibility to be an ethical corporate body”.
In revitalising the public sector, the ICPC is combating corruption in accordance with the UN Convention Against Corruption which in 2003, “recognized as variants of corruption acts of bribery, embezzlement, trading in influence, abuse of function, illicit enrichment, laundering of proceeds of crime, concealment, obstruction of justice etc. These variants all subsumed under the generic word corruption broadened the scope of the word corruption and consequently flagged these conducts as unethical behaviour.”
As a matter of fact, ICPC’s latest intervention, the NEIP, is only an addendum to the commission’s many laudable programmes so far. ICPC has treated 20,000 petitions and investigated 5,000; it has prosecuted more than 1,000 cases, established 445 ACTUS in MDAs and has trained 14,000 public servants and opened 15 state offices. The apex anti-corruption body developed the national values curriculum, being taught through subjects in both primary and secondary schools. It was ICPC that introduced the constituency projects tracking initiative, expanded same to include executive projects with special attention on health, agriculture, water resources, power, education, using a N100M threshold for project selection. It forced 59 contractors handling N2.25 billion back to site, returned assets and cash worth N900 million to their owners.
Ideally, NEIP should be the new mantra; the rallying policy for pride in nation and for a people in search of core national values and culture for shared national interest. We cannot continue to denigrate our country and expect a different approach from others. When we love and cherish our country and follow its norms and ethos, others will follow suit. Unfortunately, all the ills that plague the country still exist despite this modest effort.
As laudable as the NEIP is, ICPC already anticipates the need for citizen-ownership. The policy document says: “Public and private sector entities at federal and state levels will be encouraged to enshrine the National Ethics and Integrity Policy in all sectors of national life and integrate its principles into national and state level policy instruments, as well as reform agendas and plans of public and private sector institutions (particularly instruments for governance, the SDGs, educational, health, infrastructural, community development, national elections policy, among others. The Policy shall also be reflected in negotiated agreements such as procurement, cultural, creative industry projects, trade and other social-economic agreements, among others”.
Ayodele is a policy analyst in Abuja.
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