The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Mr. Ekpo Nta, urged workers in the nation’s aviation sector to shun corruption so as to remain on their jobs.
Nta, who made the call during the official presentation of the report of the Corruption Risk Assessment (CRA) conducted in the aviation sector by the Commission, tasked aviation workers, especially those at the airports, to kick-out corruption from the sector. He said corruption was a terrible menace in the sector and that the Commission was poised to bring the full weight of its powers to bear on officials who engage in it.
He said, “Each and every one of us has a serious role to play regarding dealing with corruption at the airports. We can prevent future mishaps in our air transportation by being proactive and transparent rather than being negligent and losing our job because of corruption.”
The CRA was a risk assessment conducted by ICPC in collaboration with the Ministry of Aviation and some aviation stakeholders at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, in 2015 with a view to identifying corruption loopholes and coming up with solutions to plug them.
The report exposed entrenched corruption being perpetrated by government officials at the airports thereby painting Nigeria in a bad light. For example, some of the findings indicated that touting and extortion had assumed a worrying dimension, a fact which had come to light in an earlier sting operation by ICPC during an outward clearance of an Emirates flight at the MMIA leading to the arrest of officials of some government agencies.
Happily, the situation has now changed as the ICPC Chairman announced that such practices have been reduced following the intervention of the Commission.
Earlier, the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, who was represented by Mrs. C.N Chukwu, assured the Commission that government was determined to implement the recommendations made in the report.
He added, “We thank ICPC for the report. It is a very well-done job. It will be used by the Federal Government as a guide to the cleaning-up project of the aviation sector.”