The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) is partnering with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to scrutinise the execution of constituency projects by National Assembly and state assembly members.
Lagos state Director of NOA, Waheed Ishola, made the disclosure on Tuesday at an interactive session organised by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) in partnership with NOA and the Department for International Development (DFID).
The interactive session was entitled: “How to sensitise citizens on anti-corruption social norms and mobilise them to support and participate in the fight against corruption.”
Speaking at the confab, Ishola said the fight against corruption by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is gaining momentum and that no sacred cows would be spared.
“In the past, the politicians would collect money for constituency projects; you will not see the constituency and you will not see the projects.
“The ICPC has partnered with the National Orientation Agency to follow up on the execution of constituency projects. If any politician fails to execute his/her constituency projects, he/she politician will be reported to the ICPC,” he said.
Enjoining traditional rulers and religious bodies to inculcate values and morals in their subjects and congregants, Ishola said Nigerians were the critical stakeholders in the anti-corruption fight.
Presenting the result of a survey entitled: “How corruption is viewed by Nigerians in view of various social norms,” a SERAP researcher, Mrs. Abosede Popoola, said that 2,549 Nigerians across all the geo-political zones were sampled in the anti-corruption survey.
Popoola said that 82 per cent of the individuals surveyed said that non-corrupt persons were not appropriately rewarded in the country.
“We sampled 55 per cent of the respondents in urban areas and 45 percent in rural areas, with 53.7 per cent of the respondents being male and 46.3 percent female.
“An overwhelming 96.2 per cent said that corruption is a problem in Nigeria and 56.5 per cent of the respondents said that corruption can be fought, while 43.5 per cent said corruption cannot be fought in the country,” she said.
The SERAP researcher recommended an urgent overhaul of the country’s institutional framework against corruption to ensure swift and conclusive action against the corrupt.
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“The power of social media also needs to be properly harnessed in the fight against corruption,” Popoola said.
A lecturer in the Department of Political Science, Lagos state University (LASU), Dr. Dele Seteolu, said that to properly enlighten members of the public on the pitfalls of corruption, the results and recommendations of the survey should be interpreted in traditional dialects.
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