Organisation lauds MacArthur, Foundation
By Kanempress
25th January, 2023
The Federal Government and its agencies have been charged to demonstratively take advantage of investigative reports gathered by the media organizations in Nigeria to impeccably address the menace of corruption in the country.
The commendation has gone to MacArthur Foundation in its effort to curtail bribery and corruption across the country.
Renowned journalists and anti-corruption campaigners who revealed this during, “Public Conscience in an anti-corruption radio program produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development PRIMORG”, Wednesday in Abuja, said that the absence of whistleblower law is one of the most basic problems nagging the country in fighting against corruption.
While reacting to the government’s response to corruption reports, the Executive Director International Center for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), Dayo Aiyetan, disclosed that the biggest problems facing investigative journalism in Nigeria are the government’s lack of recognition of the constitutional media which is holding the government accountable to deliver its mandate.
He noted that ” only about 20 to 30 percent of investigative corruption reports get government reaction”.
Aiyetan, in addition, lamented the government’s use of state security and anti-graft agents to harass and hound investigative journalists, adding that a development that invariably worsened their job and the overall fight against corruption.
“Ten or twenty percent of our work gets the government’s attention, and that’s the tragedy of accountability reporting in Nigeria, sincerely many of us who do investigative reporting work see our work as complimenting government work, but rather than see us as partners, the government is using state institutions, that is the State Security Service (SSS), Department of State Security (DSS), and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Attorney General’s office and all kinds of state agencies to harass us.” Aiyetan decried.
Similarly, Aiyetan commended the MacArthur Foundation’s support in the fight against corruption in Nigeria, saying it has massively impacted many journalists – who are now more enlightened, exposed, and emboldened to report events and hold power to account, especially in rural areas.
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, he tasked Nigerians to ensure they elect persons of integrity into offices, insisting that credible leadership is of utmost importance to the nation’s development and will influence governance.
While speaking, Dr. Chido Onumah, Coordinator of the African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), applauded the MacArthur Foundation for supporting investigative journalism and advocacies on strengthening the whistleblower policy in Nigeria.
Onumah asserted that the impact of the support from the MacArthur Foundation has been significant over the years and has gone beyond the fight against corruption and investigation to the development of journalists and members of civil society groups.
“MacArthur’s support is not just in investigations, but even capacity building, training, and retraining for journalists, many of our journalists are better today: they are better able to write, better able to report, because of the kind of support and training they get from these foundations. But, many of us in civil society are better able to understand advocacy. We can better be frontiers for the rule of law and ensure accountability, taking on the government, taking on the institutions; it’s all thanks to the foundation’s support”.
Also, Onumah noted that there’d been little progress in government reaction to corruption investigations while expressing optimism that a whistleblower draft bill recently approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) will be passed and signed into law despite the limited time left in the administration of the President Muhammadu Buhari.
He decried that Nigerians dread reporting corrupt acts because of the shortcomings of the whistleblowing policy, noting that “a national survey after two years of introducing whistleblower policy showed that sampled thousands of people from all walks of life across the country dreaded risking their lives for whistleblowing.
He, however, urged Nigerians to participate in the polls, emphasizing that Permanent Voter Card (PVC) is as good as a whistleblowing tool in this electioneering period.
Ahead of the 2023 general elections, Public Conscience is a syndicated weekly anti-corruption radio program used by PRIMORG to draw government and citizens’ attention to corruption and integrity issues in Nigeria. The program has the support of the MacArthur Foundation.
