46% of tertiary students engage in corruption ― Survey

Corruption Awareness Attitude and Susceptibility (CAAS), on Tuesday, revealed that 44 per cent of students in tertiary institutions across Nigeria had personally engaged in acts of corruption.

This revelation was made known in Abuja at a National Stakeholders’ Meeting on Nigeria Corruption Index (NCI) and Presentation of Policy brief on eradicating electoral commission, organised by the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria (ACAN), the Research and Training Arm of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

According to the research tagged “Executive Summary”, the survey weighed the susceptibility of students to corruption. Responses relating to attitude to corruption were synthesised with responses relating to personal involvement in corruption. The result indicated that the surveyed students were very susceptible to corruption.

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“The survey further revealed the attitude of the undergraduate students towards matters such as nepotism, prebendalism and monetary gains as an excuse for corruption. While 73 per cent answered that monetary gains were not sufficient to justify acts of corruption, 49 per cent opined that it is not bad for a government official to steal public funds and use the stolen public funds to build roads in his community and sponsor community members to school.” It stated.

The agency further revealed that out of 56 per cent that had not engaged in corrupt practices, 56.30 per cent were female, 43.30 per cent were male, while 0.40 per cent did not disclose their sex.

In an interview with newsmen, the ICPC Chairman, Professor Bolaji Owasanoye said his office was working with other government agencies that could help to implement the findings.

According to him, “we are working with other agencies of government who can help us to implement the findings and the outcomes. The findings and the outcomes could also lead to preventive measures that we have the statutory power to focus on.

“So, if we find that one sector is very vulnerable, we can take steps to give directives, look at that sector a little more closely and then give directives that everything should change there. We have the power to do that and we are doing so right now.

“The second is policy reform. It would help us to look at the existing government policies that are designed to challenge corruption but are not working well right now. The outcome of the survey should help us to pinpoint the areas of vulnerabilities and then we can propose these policy measures. The last is it can lead to enforcement measures.

“It would require investigation, so you have to follow all of the standard professional steps before you take enforcement measures. It should be well noted that enforcement measures are not our reason for doing the survey, it is more of the prevention because as they say, prevention is better than cure. It is cheaper to prevent, it is much more expensive to try to enforce. So, hopefully, the outcome of the survey would help us indicate vulnerabilities and then help us to take prevention measures towards diminishing corruption,” ICPC boss added.