Guest: MrsTitilayoOmonoyan- Assistant Superintendent (Education) at ICPC Lagos Office.
Topic: Attaining a Corrupt Free Society; Structures and Will Power.
Time: 10am (WAT)
“Poverty does not cause corruption, erode and distorted values lead to corruption”– Mrs. TitilayoOmonoyan (ICPC)
SIIDAfrica hosted Mary Titilayo Omonoyan (Mrs) an Assistant Chief Superintendent (Education), Lagos Office of Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to her monthly dialogue on the topic “Attaining a Corrupt Free Society; Structures and Will Power”.
The objective of this discussion is in relation to the situation of Nigeria as a country while also viewing the global perspective of corruption, its interconnectedness with poverty and values of people.
In this April edition of the dialogue, Mrs Omonoyan started the discussion by elaborating the different functions and interventions of ICPC in combating corruption and how citizens, and organizations can also engage or collaborate with the agency in reducing all forms of corruption in Nigeria.
According to Mrs Omonoyan, corruption is caused majorly by greed because it lies in the mindset of the individual. She went further to state that corruption is not caused by poverty as it is widely presumed, as one may not be financially rich but have wealth of values that promote accountability, honesty integrity, and transparency, she stated.
She defined corruption as equal to when someone has Monopoly plus Discretion minus Accountability plus Transparency plus Integrity (C=M+D-A+T+I). Eroded and distorted values lead to corruption.
Further into her discussion, she highlighted some initiatives of the Independent Corrupt Practice and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had undertaken since Inception in 2000 till date (20 years). These include;
– A Public Service Integrity Award which was won by a policeman who is known for always rejecting bribe in year 2019
– ICPC had set up the National Anti-corruption Coalition (NACC for NGOs) and National Anti-corruption Corp (For individuals) interested in taking action against corruption.
– To curb corruption and imbibed accountability within the civil servant, the ICPC established the Integrated Payroll and Personnel System (IPPS) to handle payments and salaries. This has led to a cut down of over 50,000 ghost workers and reduce wastages in government work.
– Set up of Anti-Corruption Transparency Units (ACTU) to educate workers at every level of government work.
– Citizens advocacy initiative in Tracking and Monitoring of Constituency Projects through ‘My Constituency, My Project’ and Constituency and Executive Project Tracking Group (CEPTG).
Other initiatives focused on young people are;
– Student anticorruption clubs in secondary school
– Student anti-corruption vanguards in several universities
– NYSC CDs group
– National Values Curriculum (NVC) and so on
To commemorate 20 years of establishing the commission, a National Music competition was launched in year 2020 which was won by a student from the University of Lagos.
In her conclusion, MrsOmonoyo encouraged participants to demand accountability from public office holders especially.
Mr Samuel Odusanya, SIIDAfrica Strategic Operations and Research Manager enlightened participants on the process of using the “C-Report”, it is an online Corruption Reporting Platform designed by SIIDAfrica to encourage evidence-based reporting of incidents of corruption by citizens.
The C-Report platform which allows citizens to report different levels of corruption be it financial corruption/non-financial corruption at public/private spaces, or electoral corruption before, during or after election, also captures positive reports which promotes accountability, honesty, integrity, and transparency. The platform can be accessed through the SIIDAfrica website at www.siidafrica.org.
The dialogue came to a close with the closing remark by MrOlamilekanLawal, Director SIIDAfricawho made it known that the organization will be working in partnership with ICPC to get reports of incidents from citizens to the agency. SIIDAfrica will also be glad to partner with other organizations, agencies and MDA’s to promote a corrupt free Nation.
He stated that other editions of the Dialogue will be looking at training citizens especially youths on how to write petition and the procedures involved with specific reference to the use of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011.
The meeting ended with participants reciting the Nigeria pledge to reiterate their commitment to contributing to a better nation.
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SIIDAFRICA INITIATIVES FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT shortly called “SIIDAfrica” is a youth-led, youth focus, not for profit organization established to deliver positive social impact through support to strengthen the skills and capacities of young Africans globally.
SIIDAfrica represents the nurtured ideology of young Africans who desire to collaborate beyond tribe, religion, skin colour, ethnicity and political affiliation towards the development of Africa starting from their communities; and recognizing that little drops of commitment makes the ocean of development we all seek in Africa.
SIIDAfrica is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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