The Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER) has submitted that controlling corruption would require a comprehensive strategy involving people with the right values and behaviour and reducing opportunities for corruption.
This imperative was identified at a seminar themed, “Corrupt Behavior in Nigeria’s Public Sector: Simplifying a Complex Phenomenon,” held at NISER, Ibadan.
Presenting the seminar paper, Drs Iyabo Olanrele and Sebil Oshota, Research Fellows at the Economic and Business Policy Department of the Institute, called for a strategic messaging against corruption targeting the public sector at all levels, the private sector, and citizens.
They noted that their findings showed that corruption can be controlled through interventions that promote desirable attributes while simultaneously providing ways to encourage positive changes in people with undesirable attributes and behaviour.
The paper pointed out that despite efforts to curb corruption in Nigeria, primarily through legal means, corruption remained prevalent, endemic, and deeply ingrained, affecting governance and businesses.
The paper identified that corruption is more ingrained by the mix of human behaviour interacting with systemic factors.
They, therefore, held that corruption could be tracked and controlled by reducing human interface in public sector transactions and discretionary powers. The study gave narrations of respondents who, in engaging with a public official, experienced a corrupt act or were pressured to engage in corrupt behaviour.
Noting how endemic corruption was in Nigeria, defying anti-corruption strides, the researchers concluded that behavioural change strategies should include a hybrid of appropriate intervention mechanisms to produce a significant change in undesirable attributes for the phenomenon of corruption to approach a desirable level of reduction.
All the panellists, Mrs Azuka Ogugua of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Ivan Taylor of Policy Dynamics Inc, and Mr. Barth Feese of PCDI agreed on reducing corruption opportunities.
Earlier in her opening remarks, the Director-General, NISER, Professor Antonia Simbine, represented by Professor Adesoji Adesanya, appreciated the MacArthur Foundation for its support and highlighted the achievements of the project in the last three years.
The achievements, according to the DG, include, among others, the provision of empirical evidence on the psychosocial drivers of public corruption in Nigeria, involving one of the largest sample sizes (3,174 respondents) ever included in a study on public corruption in the country, and collaboration with key public agencies to undertake process mapping and anti-corruption intervention designs.