ICPC Reads Riot Act To Corrupt Nigerians

This is even as Federal Government owned institutions in the state have intensified measures to fight the scourge in their various establishments.

The anti-graft Commission said that it would intensify activities to detect and investigate acts of corruption, embezzlement of public funds and abuse of office.

Chairman of the Commission, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye, stated this at the 2019 United Nation’s international Anti-Corruption Day held in Owerri, the Imo State Capital, which had the theme “United Against Corruption”.

Owasanoye, who described corruption as an abuse of an entrusted position for personal benefit or the exploitation of a system for securing an unmerited advantage, noted that corruption as a social malaise  manifests in so many ways both in the public and  private, formal and informal sectors of the  economy.

At the ceremony, which featured discussions on corruption, constituency projects, tracking and need for citizens participation in governance were highlighted. The ICPC Boss listed forgery, fraud, bribery, money laundering, contract sum inflation, tax evasion and smuggling as some of the classical acts of corruption, stressing that wherever example of corruption is taken, it is inimical as it destroys the capacity of institutions to deliver the functions of their mandate.

Owasanoye, whose address was read by the Imo State Commissioner of the Commission, Udonsi .U. Arua, argued that the fight against the monster (corruption) could succeed if fought at all levels; when Nigerians cease to pay lip service to the fight against it, change their corrupt ways of doing things and effectively embrace integrity, transparency and accountability as the way of life.

“Let me use this occasion to remind you that the ICPC is vested with the responsibility to receive and to investigate reports of corruption and to prosecute offender(s) where necessary, to study and to review corruption prone procedures and systems in government establishments with view to eliminating or minimizing corruption and educate and mobilize the public” he said.

While urging Nigerians, institutions, corporate bodies, security and anti-corruption agencies to use their mandate to build a better nation, Owasanoye assured that ICPC is determined to make the anti-corruption crusade affect governance and well being of the generality of Nigerians.