The chairman of the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), Prof. Mohammed Isa, has said Nigeria has remained sluggish in almost every facet of national development largely due to greed and unstoppable quest for materialism by most public officers.
He said most of the officers feel the public office was a ready conduit where indiscipline and corruption flows and thus made it become an acceptable norm that public office is a ‘National Cake’ which occupants are privilege to have and share.
He spoke in Abuja at the April 2019 Lunch Time Reform Seminar organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) with the theme: “Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct for Public Officers”.
According to him, society therefore place high expectations on public officer as they push their sons and daughters to get in and get rich in public office, not minding the means to meet such expectations.
“The issue becomes more worrisome when public officers who could loot the public office are often honoured, celebrated and accorded all forms of recognition, while those who play by the rules of the public office are regarded as not smart and failures in the society. Little wonder they crave for public office,” he said.
The CCB boss said that the bureau’s vision to undertake this breath taking constitutional task is, “Honesty, transparency and accountability” with a mission to “eradicate corrupt practices and ensure compliance with the code of conduct for public officers,” through the instrumentality of assets declaration. Speaking earlier, the acting Director General of the BPSR, Mr. Dasuki Arabi, charged public officers to conform to the highest ethical standards.
Arabi said it is only when the activities of government were transparent that government is acknowledged as accountable to the governed.
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