At a stakeholders’ inception meeting on the Nigeria’s anti-corruption performance public reporting organized by the Center for Media, Policy and Accountability (CMPA), participants supported the need for a template for reporting the country’s anti-corruption efforts.
The workshop organized by the Center was part of an ongoing effort to developed a harmonized template for reporting and measuring the impact of anti-corruption efforts by anti-corruption agencies (ACAs). The forum also provides an opportunity for participants to assess efforts of ACAs owing to concerns about the dissonance between perception and reality in the work ACAs and other stakeholders.
The Africa’s Regional Director, Macarthur Foundation, Dr. Kole Shettima decried the impact of corruption on living standards of the people, noting that it is why the Foundation continues to commit resources towards ridding the nation of corruption.
He explained that the Foundation’s intervention is four-fold including helping to improve and strengthening the criminal justice system, effecting behavioral change by working with faith leaders and entertainment industry, support for civil society groups and support for the independence of the media to foster accountability.
Shettima said that the fight against corruption is a collective responsibility, and pointed out that the Foundation interventions are not aimed at pressing punitive actions or sending perpetrators to jail, but mostly about getting those in power and the system to operate justly in order to improve the quality of lives of the ordinary people.
In his goodwill remarks, Prof. Sola Akinrinade noted that ACAs should do more in reporting their performances, noting that the advocacy led by the CMPA will be helpful in developing a reporting template.
On his part, the Executive secretary of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Sadiq Radda drew attention to the need to fight corruption at subnational levels. He noted that the overconcentration on the executive and federal level (and over-governmentalization) may continue to misrepresents ACAs efforts; adding there is an urgent need to decentralize efforts to the private sector.
Professor Radda urged Nigerians to be wary of demonizing politics and actively get involved in order to elect upright leaders to power.
The Center for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch (CeFTIW) is committed to supporting CMPA with technical expertise that will assist in the development of the harmonize template. It is hoped that this will contribute to efforts at improving the nation’s fight against corruption.