As the country battles the debilitating effects of corruption and its causes, the spokesperson for the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), Mrs Azuka, Ogugua, on Thursday in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, said that most Nigerians don’t believe that fight against graft will be successful.
She maintained that cynicism on the part of the people constitutes a major impediment to war against corruption in the society.
Speaking on the sideline of a seminar organised by the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), Ibadan, titled: “Corrupt Behaviour in Nigeria’s Public Sector: Simplifying a Complex Phenomenon”, Ogugua said: “The major challenge against anti corruption war in terms of behavioural aspect is that of cynicism of the masses. Most people hardly believe that anything done to fight corruption will be successful.
“The challenge is to turn the opinion of the masses to believe that the anti-graft agencies can make a change in fighting corruption. So they can join us to fight corruption. The challenge now means that many people don’t come forward to report corruption.
“My message for Nigerians is that they should come forward to report corruption to anti-corruption agencies. We have ICPC in Ibadan and we have offices in 21 states of the federation and they can go ahead to report corruption,” she posited.
This was just as a research fellow, in NISER’s Economic and Business Policy Department (EBPD), Dr Iyabo Olanrele, and her counterpart, Dr Sebil Oshota, canvassed for holistic strategies to combat corruption in the country.
Olanrele stated: “Any strategy that must be deployed to fight or stem corruption must be holistic. We have to look at the positive and negative attributes in the fight against corruption.
On sectors that are prone to corruption, she stated that for some ethical reasons, “if you notice during our presentation, we actually concentrate on the public sector, but we didn’t mention any name or agency.
“We have a kind of model institution that we think other public institutions can emulate. What we found out in the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) was striking. We are of the opinion that other public institutions can also tow that line.”
Earlier in her remark, the Director-General of NISER, Professor Anthonia Simbine, who was 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, 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.
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