The chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, has called on community-based organisations (CBOs) across the country to rise to the imperatives of whistle-blowing by volunteering information about cases of economic and financial crimes in their neighbourhood.
He made the call in Ilorin while presenting a paper on overcoming the challenges of whistle blowing and anti-corruption war at a one-day stakeholders’ town hall meeting organised by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy(AFRICMIL).
Bawa said every Nigerian has a role to play in the fight against economic and financial crimes by exposing compromises of extant laws on corrupt practices in their environments.
“We need every Nigerian to come on board because the negative effect of corruption does not discriminate against ethnicity, religion or political affiliation. We need citizens to actively participate in the fight against economic and financial crimes through volunteering information,” he said.
Bawa assured that the EFCC was willing to collaborate with CBOs such as AFRICMIL in strengthening citizens’ capacities to identify and report cases of corruption as well as educating them on the guidelines for whistle blowing and procedures for processing entitlement.
He said one of the positive steps the EFCC had taken in easing the process of whistle blowing was the development of the “Eagle Eye App” that allows informants to report and interface with officials of the commission.
“The app has added a new and very interesting perspective to whistle-blowing in Nigeria. I urge all those who are yet to make use of the application to download it into their phones and take advantage of its easy-to-use features,” he said.
Coordinator of AFRICMIL, Chido Onumah, stated that the meeting was organised to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders on the whistle blowing policy.
He added that the centre had created awareness and sensitised the public on the importance of whistle blowing as a tool for fighting corruption and checking other forms of wrong doing in the society.
