By Uche Amunike
The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC) has explained that part of their reason for holding 43 meetings with Monarchs, youth associations and religious leaders, was to reveal the seven-core value policy on citizens by way of fighting corruption in the country.
Speaking, during the Nigerian Economic Summit, holding at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, a member of the agency’s board, Mrs Olubukola Balogun stated thus: ‘Asides other areas of curbing corruption such as the use of law and order. The regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), through the ICPC, is reintroducing a seven-core value namely human dignity, voice and participation, patriotism, personal responsibility, integrity, national unity and professionalism.’
‘We’ve had about 43 meetings and met with traditional rulers, religious leaders and youth groups. We also have organisations in secondary schools.’
She explained that the society is the driving force for every action and inaction that is put in place for individuals, even though there are sanctions and systems that hold them to account.
Her words: ‘Everything has to be driven by the society. It is the society that will make the two work. So, we want to work on the society and that is why we now have development partners, and the government has approved the National Ethics and Integrity Policy since September 2020.’
According to her, the anti- graft agency has taken the seven-core values enshrined in the National Ethics and Integrity Policy to various places across the country, especially among children and students.
Hear her: ‘This is what we are advocating for, for everyone to come back to the drawing board and get our values right in the society.’
‘All the behaviours that are unethical should be abandoned, for our common good, so that we can have shared prosperity, and get it right. And the ICPC is doing so much in this regard.’
On her part, the Deputy Director of Policy Innovation Centre and Senior Fellow (NESG), Dr Osasuyi Dirisu, said that her group was carrying out a 3 year old program that is funded by the MaCArthur Foundation to garner lessons from liberal Science to apply lessons derived from behavioral science to work on improving transparency and accountability in the country.
She stated: ‘The event we’re here for today, is part of that effort to keep that ongoing conversation to improve accountability and transparency within different sectors of the country.’
‘What we did here is special because we brought both the public and private sectors together to have a shared understanding of what the problem is and what the solutions are, and how to use lessons that we know from behavioural science to improve accountability and transparency in Nigeria and counter corruption.’
In the past four years, not less than 97 Property has been seized from individuals by the ICPC. These include 33 buildings, plots of land and a factory forfeited to the federal government by a former accountant with the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, Dr Jimoh Olatunde.
