ICPC Seeks Traditional, Religious Leaders’ Support On Corruption Fight

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has engaged both the traditional and religious leaders and other stakeholders to instill behavioural change and national value at the grassroots to fight endemic corruption.

Speaking during one-day sensitisation workshop with the theme: “National Ethics and Integrity Policy (NEIP)” in Bauchi, the state chairman of the commission, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye (SAN), said that the ICPC has realised that the ‘law and order approach’ to the fight against (enforcement) alone is not enough to get rid of the menace from the society.

He said that the ideal behaviour for citizens is to respect the laws of the land, keep their word, do their duty with diligence, respect and value other human beings, not get involved in stealing from the government, cheating others or any form of deception. 

“Unfortunately, the reality is that many people are far from the ideal. Therefore, there is a need to make intentional efforts to turn around negative behaviours to positive ones through the inculcation of positive values,” he said.

He said, the commission has designed several programmes and initiatives to bring about behavioural change in the society. These, he said, include the National Values Curriculum (NVC) for teaching of positive values to pupils and students at primary, secondary and tertiary institutions; the National Ethics and Integrity Policy (NEIP) for promoting integrity in the society generally; the Ethics and Integrity Compliance Scorecard (EICS) of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to measure the level of compliance to integrity standards in government bodies, amongst other initiatives.