THE chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Musa Adamu, has said the Open Contract Reporting Project (OCRP) of The International Centre For Investigative Reporting (ICIR) made significant contributions to Nigeria’s fight against corruption.
He stated this while delivering a keynote address titled “Combatting Corruption in Nigeria: The Imperative Of Starting With Procurement Fraud” at the OCRP close-out and award ceremony held in Abuja on Tuesday, December 10.
He said many corruption cases are linked to procurement fraud, ranging from inflated contract sums and kickbacks to ghost projects and deliberate manipulations of tender processes.
He noted that the OCRP helped to leverage investigative journalism and citizen engagement by exposing procurement irregularities in critical sectors, promoting transparency and empowering citizens and civil society to dismantle corruption‘s grip on public procurement.
Adamu added that the MacArthur Foundation-funded OCRP, which is rounding off after seven years, helped Nigeria fight corruption.
Speaking on the level of corruption in Nigeria, the anti-graft boss said sleazes were so rife in the country that he saw where a public servant diverted public funds to his account and challenged the commission to say “Let’s have a plea bargain”
He said many people in the public sector were looking for public funds to loot.
“We have had a case where somebody spent N7 million on a project that couldn’t have cost more than N100,000. He went on to say “I have taken it, and what can you do about it? Let’s go to court,” Adamu stated.
According to him, constituency project monitoring is one major way the commission is tracking procurement fraud.
In his welcome address, the executive director of The ICIR, Dayo Aiyetan, said if the nation refused to deal with procurement fraud, its attempts to fight corruption would be futile.
According to Aiyetan, when the OCRP started seven years ago, investigative journalism was not popular.
He criticised the harassment of journalists by security agencies and posited that any society that obstructed a free press could not be serious about democracy.
Aiyetan also stated that many journalists in Nigeria were hounded by the use of the Cyber Crime Act.
He lauded the MacArthur Foundation for supporting the OCRP.
In her remarks, the deputy director of the MacArthur Foundation, Amina Salihu, said the nation owed the upcoming and present generation and must ensure all hands are on deck to eradicate corruption.
She said the present generation “has a better opportunity to use the resources of this country but has not been able to guarantee that for the upcoming generation.”
She charged Nigerians to be determined to end corruption.
“I don’t want to throw numbers at you, because you’ve had the keynote address. But you always must be worried and be angry enough that this country can be better, and be way ahead of itself.”
While commending the OCRP, she said, “Thank you very much for this moment, ICIR. 300 journalists trained, and 500 quality reports; that is stellar. We look forward to what the future holds and how those potentials become possible.”
Six exceptional fellows were recognised at the ceremony.
The executive director of The Investigator Journalism Development and Innovation Centre and publisher of The Investigator, Archibong Jeremiah Ojanga, emerged as the overall best fellow.
A reporter with the ICIR
A Journalist with a niche for quality and a promoter of good governance