Corruption: Why We Are Focusing More on Prevention – ICPC Chairman

The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Dr Musa Adamu Aliyu, SAN, has explained why the Commission, under his leadership, is focusing more on strengthening its prevention mandate.

The Commission, as enshrined in Section 6 (a-F) of the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 has three thematic mandate which include: Enforcement, Prevention and Public Education/Enlightenment.

Speaking on Tuesday at a one-day National Policy Dialogue on Anti-Corruption organised by the Centre for Media Policy and Accountability (CMPA), the ICPC Boss noted that experience has shown that preventive measures have helped to reduce corrupt practices just as he stressed the need for effective collaboration from all stakeholders so that the preventive approaches being put forward by anti-corruption agencies could be strengthened.

Dr. Aliyu also disclosed that the synergy and effective partnership that the ICPC had with the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) led to a recent discovery and blocking of about $300,000 meant for students in the ICT sector.

He said “I am encouraging us across all agencies to open up to one another. This will help us in streamlining what we are doing. there is no single arm of government or tier of government or agency that can fight corruption alone, so we need to come together locally, regionally and internationally for us to fight corruption. It was the synergy between us and BPP that led to the discovery of a strange thing that was happening in respect to a certain fund earmarked for students in the ICT sector. It was then that we had to look properly and make recoveries, blocking $300,000 in one of the accounts, as well as recovering an expensive vehicle.”

Earlier in his address, the address, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Abiodun Fagbemi, SAN, who was represented at the event by Mr. Rotimi Oyedepo, (SAN) expressed delight at the gathering noting that it afforded stakeholders the opportunity to compare notes and see how best anti-corruption activities and successes recorded could be reported and sustained.

On his part, Mr. Kole Shettima, Director of MacArthur Foundation, West Africa and keynote speaker at the event, highlighted the four elements and agenda the Foundation was pursing to engender accountability and transparency in the bid to stem corruption vices.

He listed the area to include: support for independence of the media, need to address behavioural change approach to fighting corruption, strengthening of the criminal justice system and support for the civil society organizations.