Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, has stressed that it is wrong to label all Nigerians as corrupt.
Gatekeepers News reports that Owasanoye said this at the Behaviour Change Conference and Exhibition 2023 on Wednesday in Abuja
The event with the theme, ‘Anti-Corruption Interventions in Nigeria-A Behavioral Change Perspective of What Needs to Shift,” was jointly organised by MacArthur Foundation, Akin Fadeyi Foundation, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, alongside other partners.
Owasanoye said, “At one of the recent policy dialogues organised by the ICPC, two very vocal participants boisterously but erroneously maintained that Nigerians who are not corrupt are those who have not had the opportunity to abuse or collude in the abuse of public office, authority or position.
“This erroneous belief by relatively few people that all Nigerians are corrupt can be considered in the light of the traditional anti-corruption interventions in Nigeria and the recent efforts towards expanding the focus of anti-corruption interventions to include the behavioural change approach.
“From my experience in leading the anti-corruption fight at the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption and the ICPC, I can tell you categorically that not all Nigerians are corrupt.”
The ICPC boss added that some of the heads of government organisation fell prey to corruption blackmail from their subordinates, because they did not read and understand some of the rules, thus getting misled by the same people who would now send anonymous petitions against them.
On his part, the lead organiser of the event, Akin Fadeyi, said, “This event was not just to showcase our work, it was strategic to reevaluating our scorecards and redesign more robust templates aimed at scaling up our milestones in measurable impactful proportions.”
In his remarks, the Country Director, the MacArthur Foundation, Dr Kole Shettima, wondered when Nigerian politicians would be self-reformed to work for the national interest, rather than their personal interests that harm national interests.
In addition, Lilian Ekeanyanwu who represented the Country Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC, Oliver Stolpe, said, “The fight against corruption is not complete without addressing issues of transparency, integrity, and accountability. At the core of these values is behavioural change or the attitudes of citizens and their government. As we already know, combatting and preventing corruption requires a holistic framework and multi-sectoral approach.”
