Pursuant to an aspect of its tripartite mandate, “to educate the public on and against bribery, corruption and related offences; and to enlist and foster public support in combating corruption,” the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), has organized a training retreat for 40 of its education officers.
The retreat which was held at the Anti-Corruption Academy of Nigeria (ACAN), the training arm of ICPC, focused on skills, strategies and stakeholders, and was aimed at coaching education officers on the implementation of an effective public education campaign against corruption.
The main thrust of the retreat was to familiarize officers with the objectives and goals of the Education Department; to discuss how to improve on work schedule for greater impact; and to discuss experiences and challenges of the participants as education officers for effective mass mobilization.
Declaring the training open, ICPC Chairman, Mr. Ekpo Nta, who was represented by the Secretary to the Commission, Dr. Elvis Oglafa, charged the participants to carry out a self-appraisal of their performance over a period of time to sustain areas of high performance while improving on areas of weakness.
He also called on them to get more committed to the anti-corruption crusade, saying that they had a task of educating over 150 million Nigerians on the ills of corruption.
It is worthy of note that since its inception over a decade ago, ICPC has carried out its duties of tackling corruption in the country through the strategies of enforcement, system studies, as well as education and public enlightenment. To carry out this statutory mandate effectively and efficiently, the Commission has always recognized the fact that its members of staff require constant training and cutting-edge capacity-building.