Accountability Lab Nigeria’s Country Director, Friday Odeh, has attributed the problems afflicting economic and national development to a lack of accountability and integrity.
As part of his dedication to fostering integrity in the Nigerian public service sector, the Accountability Lab boss also presented five public servants with Integrity Icons of the Year 2022 awards.
According to Odeh, who made this statement at the 6th edition of the Integrity Icon Awards, which was recently held in Abuja, a lack of integrity, which breeds corruption, inequality, and insecurity, continues to be a serious problem that threatens to destabilise the nation.
He stated that for Nigeria to follow the course for which it was established, it must create powerful institutions that can stand on their own.
He continued by describing Integrity Icon as a national initiative run by Accountability Lab Nigeria with assistance from the Ford, MacArthur, and Luminate Foundations. Its goal is to recognise and support upright public servants who exhibit exemplary integrity while performing their duties.
Odeh said: “If you look at what is happening in election campaigns, none of the political candidates has put accountability at the forefront of their campaign, which is a big problem for us because it is now going back to show that we are having the same circle back and forth in lack of accountability in our community.
“The top five public servants that perform fantastically every year are rewarded. We have seen the DG of a procurement agency in Gombe State, which has moved the revenue from about N400,000 to N1.2 billion.
“Those are the kind of inspirational stories we want because they are beginning to tackle corrupt practices that happen in those kinds of sectors like contracting which is the foremost corrupt practice in Nigeria happening in almost every sector.
“But when you find people like that doing the right thing, we can save more money, we can ensure that quality service is delivered to citizens.”
Yemi Kale, a former statistician general for the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), made the following statement in his remarks: “If you have integrity in selecting who you are putting in different places, Nigeria will move forward, but when you put wrong people in the wrong places, the country will keep moving back.
“I don’t think we are there yet; we still have a lot to do but I believe that some progress has been made in certain areas. In some other areas, we have moved backwards, in some other areas we have not moved at all.
“It depends on what you are looking at. Overall, we will say we have moved into the positive but it is not as much as we should have moved by now.
“In terms of my office, everybody has noticed that office has continued to work diligently in upholding the integrity that we tried to put in the system and to maintain the trust of the general public, which is important.”
Additionally, Mrs. Mwalin Abdu from the Ministry of Justice in Gombe State, one of the recipients of the Integrity Icon 2022 award, claimed that she received the honour through a supporter of gender-based violence.
“Because of my background, I handle a lot of cases of sexual and domestic violence.