ICPC enlists Information Commissioners in renewed fight against corruption

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has enlisted state Commissioners for Information across the country in the renewed fight against corruption.

In a release signed by the Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Prince Dotun Oyelade, who attended the ICPC Roundtable Meeting in Abuja with other commissioners of information across the country, it was noted that while corruption remains a defining challenge at the federal level, the real battleground lies at the state and local government levels due to their proximity to the grassroots.

At the meeting, the Commissioners and the ICPC resolved to take several far-reaching measures, including:

• Sustaining collaboration and synergy between the ICPC and State Information Commissioners to spread anti-corruption messages using state-owned media platforms.

• Implementing deliberate and sustained communication strategies to build public trust, legitimacy, and collective action against corruption.

• Embedding anti-corruption messages into government information management processes.

• Sensitising and mobilising citizens to demand accountability, participate in governance, and report corrupt practices.

• Building capacity and providing training for state and local government officials on strategic communication, transparency, and anti-corruption tools.

• Promoting ethical reorientation by embedding values of integrity into governance, schools, and community structures.

• Partnering with media and civil society to amplify government efforts and provide independent assessments.

• Communicating anti-corruption messages in local languages commonly spoken in communities.

• Launching grassroots-focused campaigns and creating a WhatsApp platform for constant engagement between states and the ICPC.

• Translating ICPC publications and Information, Education, and Communication (IEC) materials into local languages for wider reach.

• Providing airtime on public radio and television stations for anti-corruption programmes and sensitisation campaigns.

• Organising thematic advocacy campaigns targeted at schools, Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to drive behavioural change and ethical reorientation.

The resolutions, according to Prince Oyelade, are aimed at strengthening the collective will to combat corruption, particularly at the grassroots level where its effects are most felt.

In his closing remarks, the ICPC Chairman, Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, said that the roundtable engagement with Commissioners of Information across the country is deliberate as it is one of the vital steps the agency is pursuing to reduce corruption to its barest minimum and save Nigeria from avoidable international embarrassment.

In his own address, the Minister of Information and Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris Malagi, agreed with the ICPC Chairman that having synergy with state Commissioners for Information is important and promised to work relentlessly with his state colleagues to actualise the objectives of the roundtable meeting.

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