How to tackle corruption, by Actionaid 

ACTIONAID Nigeria and other stakeholders in the nation’s public and private sectors yesterday reviewed the depth of corruption in the country and came up with a verdict that to win the war against the monster governments must work in tandem.

They argued that corruption and poverty are linked, and as such, the fight to end corruption should be intertwined with ending poverty.

This position is contained in a 69- page report ‘Corruption and Poverty in Nigeria’ presented to stakeholders in Abuja yesterday. It called for the merging of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and harmonising of their activities.

A copy of the report which has been presented to the Transition Committee set up by President Muhammadu Buhari ,is to be sent to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) when constituted.

The report noted how public funds were mismanaged by the governors, ministers, legislators and Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at national, state and local government.

The report called on government to implement all aspects of the Procurement Act, including constituting and inaugurating the national procurement council. It asks state governments to enact similar laws and ensure strict implementation. Country Director of ActionAid Nigeria, Ojobo Atuluku said at the presentation of the report, that while people were quick to blame the incidence of poverty in Nigeria on corrupt practices among public officials, many studies focusing on Nigeria’s experience had convincingly sustained this or addressed the relationship between corruption and poverty.

She noted: “with this study, we sought to find out if there is a strong correlation between corruption and poverty in Nigeria. We were very clear in our focus of this research.

We were not going to get into the debate about the level of incidence of poverty in the country not irrelevant and sometimes diversionary contestations around corruption in Nigeria. Our sight was trained on the causal relationship between corruption and poverty in Nigeria, implications for development, impact on the poor, possible policy responses and other solutions to the challenges identified.

While we were also keen on providing resource for further researches into corruption and poverty in Nigeria, we were also not going to focus on mere theoretical work which would concern itself merely with providing new hypothesis on the subject of the study, but rather deal with lived realities of the people and come out with clear recommendations for remedying the situation.

“In order to ensure achievement of this set objective, we assembled a team of administrators. The team was led by Prof. Etanibi Alemika, a professor of criminology.

Others include Dung Pam Sha, a professor of political science; Mrs Ayo Obe, a legal practitioner and rights activist, Mallam Yunusa Yau, a former university teacher, development worker and activist; Mr. Segun Adeniyi, a journalist and former Special Adviser to the Nigerian President on Media and Publicity.”

The report said the office of the Attorney General should enforce compliance with the Freedom of Information Act across all ministries, departments and agencies. It added: “The federal government should ensure that all anti-corruption agencies are autonomous and given all the powers and resources they need to discharge their mandates of fighting corruption.

“There is need to strengthen the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) to enable it to discharge its mandate in the area of ensuring accountability in the extractive industry.

There is need to visit the public reward system and remuneration of public officials to reduce fear of impoverishment upon retirement from public employment. Undue interference in the operations, processes and decisions of anti-poverty agencies should be avoided. There should be adequate funding of anti-poverty agencies and programmes.”

Rights activist and Executive Director of the Centre for Information Technology and Development, Mallam Yunusa Ya’u, want the judiciary to treat issues of corruption with dispatch. He stressed: “we want the government to realize that poverty is capable of eroding the legitimacy of governance.

They need to urgently address, in more substantive sense, more than what they are doing before. They need to do a quick legal reform in the sector so that anti-corruption agencies and the judiciary would be on a better pedestrian to address corruption.”