The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Professor Bolaji Owasanoye has said that Anti-Corruption and Transparency Monitoring Unit (ACTU) members in various Ministries, Departments and Agencies are better placed to effectively prevent the prevalence of corruption in their organizations.
Speaking at the inauguration of the newly appointed ACTU members of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja, the ICPC Chairman who was represented by Barrister Ifeanyi Obialor of Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Department (CMED) pointed out that ACTU had the capacity of making the organization a model in corruption prevention in line with the mandate of the Commission.
Professor Owasanoye stated that the mission statement of NTA which is “to provide excellent television service worldwide while projecting the true African perspective” could not be achieved if accountability was not assiduously and tenaciously entrenched in the procedures, guidelines, processes and extant rules of the television station.
The Chairman also said that the ACTU members would need the unalloyed backing of the management in the fight against corruption, while he emphasized that it was the compelling reason why the management of NTA was being called upon to adequately fund the activities of the Unit as statutory requirement vide extant circulars issued by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
He further said in his address, that it was better to suffer for what is right, than to suffer for doing what is wrong, adding that, in a few years from now, the change mantra of the current administration and the sustained effort of the anti-corruption agencies would catch up with those who engaged in unwholesome corrupt practices.
In his remarks at the inauguration ceremony, the Director General of NTA, Mallam Yakubu Ibn Mohammed, said corruption was a cankerworm that had eaten deep into the fabric of Nigerian societal development, and that if left untreated, it could portend doom for the country.
The DG quoted the former Kenya anti-corruption czar, Professor Patrick Lumumba who said in 2002 that, “Our country must morally re-arm, we cannot run a country where virtue is vice and vice is a virtue”.
He further said that the quote was not just relevant today, but also applicable to every country that desired to grow and develop.
Mallam Yakubu stated that this was the reason why the government of President Mohammadu Buhari made the fight against corruption one of its cardinal objectives, which was being pursued with utmost vigour.
He also pointed out that if the mission of NTA was to promote national, political and economic goals towards a united, strong and self-reliant society, the agency must take the lead in enlightening the public about the effects of corruption on our national development.