Corruption is fueled by community expectations — ICPC chairman

The chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practises and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye SAN, asserted on Tuesday that corruption in Nigeria is being fueled by community expectations of people in offices.

He said people expected officeholders to confer benefits from the office they were holding on members of the community regardless of whether such benefits were corrupt practises in themselves or they came from the proceeds of corruption.

The ICPC chairman stated these in his welcome address at a National Policy Dialogue on Corruption, Social Norms, and Behavioural Change in Nigeria organised by the Commission and Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation.

He said that despite widespread cultural and religious perceptions of corruption as a negation of societal values, people would accept monetary gifts above officeholders’ annual salaries without questioning the source of the money.

According to Owasanoye, “Corruption is therefore fueled by community expectations of people in office.

“There is, for example, a general belief that groups, networks, and communities expect the holder of an office to confer benefits from (or of) the office on members of the community regardless of whether (a) the benefits are corrupt practises in themselves (e.g., nepotism) or (b) if the benefits come from proceeds of corruption (e.g., embezzlement).

“Also, there is the common expectation that people in high office should donate huge sums of money at public functions.

Lastly, it is equally expected that government officials should enrich themselves (and/or confer other benefits on themselves) from their offices.

“Relations and community members of public officials see nothing wrong with all these, even when they condemn such practises happening in other communities—a case of “it is good for us and not for other communities”.”

While submitting that the law and order approach to tackling corruption is not enough to curb the menace, Owasanoye said the approach had to be complemented with some form of self- or group-regulatory mechanism to achieve the desired behaviour change in both government and society.

“Achieving the goal of behavioural change in a society with endemic corruption involves a complex and sometimes long process that requires a multi-sectoral brainstorming session to develop an appropriate policy framework.

“This is where a policy dialogue platform offers a unique and verifiable opportunity,” the senior advocate said.

He noted that the timing of this policy dialogue on corruption, social norms, and behaviour change in Nigeria is at a time when the foundation of our social values and norms has become seriously threatened.

“In actual fact, a lot of changes are taking place across the wider Nigerian society. But more worrisome to me is the emergence and pervasive spread of corruption-inducing social norms across all ethnicities and religious divides,” the ICPC boss said.

He then expressed the hope that the dialogue on corruption, social norms, and behaviour change in Nigeria would be able to disentangle the web of issues involving political, social, economic, religious, and ethnic factors that fuel corrupt practices and identify how societal expectations from peers, networks, groups, and communities enable corruption to fester in both government and society, among other tasks.

Owasanoye then recommended, among others, that key stakeholders institute a reward system for those who demonstrate good behaviour or who stand against corruption in their constituencies.

Such a reward system, according to him, should be elevated to a policy for all administrations to implement, adding that “the ad hoc recognition of good practises that is presently being done should also be elevated to the level of a policy that is not regime-bound.”

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