Why ICPC held 43 meetings with monarchs, others

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has revealed that the reason it held 43 meetings with monarchs, religious leaders and youth groups was to introduce the commission’s seven-core value policy on citizens in its approach to fighting corruption in the country.

A member of the anti-graft agency’s board, Mrs Olubukola Balogun, made this known at the ongoing Nigeria Economic Summit holding at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.

She said, “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.

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Balogun noted that, though there are sanctions and systems put in place to hold people to account, however, the society is the driving force for every actions and inactions of individuals.

“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.” She said.

She also noted that the ICPC have been taking the seven core values enshrined in the National Ethics and Integrity Policy to different places across the country, especially among children and students.

“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.”

The Deputy Director, Policy Innovation Centre and Senior Fellow, NESG, Dr Osasuyi Dirisu, noted that her group was implementing a three-year program funded by the MacArthur Foundation, to harness lessons from liberal science, to use those lessons from behavioural science to work on improving accountability and transparency in Nigeria.

She said, “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.”