Jega: Corruption Detrimental to Education Sector

•ICPC: Prospective govt appointees indicted for corrupt practices, drug abuse

•President confers integrity award on policeman for rejecting $200,000 robbery bribe

Deji Elumoye and Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja

A former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, yesterday regretted that Nigeria was being perceived as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

Jega said this in his keynote address, while speaking at the 4th National  Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector with theme: “Corruption and the Education Sector” organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in conjunction with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), Joint Admission and Matriculation (JAMB) with support from MacArthur Foundation, Buhari said corruption from  the  basic to tertiary levels of education greatly undermined government’s investment in the sector.

Also, the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bola Owasanoye, said the agency had escalated its anti-corruption drive in tertiary institutions and Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDA).

This was just as President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday conferred the prestigious 2022 public service Integrity award on a Chief Superintendent Daniel Amah for rejecting a $200,000 bribe from robbers.

Amah is the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Nasarawa Division in Kano State.

Jega said the effects of corruption in the education sector undermined national capacity to develop requisite national social capital for socioeconomic development, adding that no nation develops without adequate and appropriate investment in education.

He lamented that the education sector had suffered neglect, chronically underfunded and engulfed in crisis, compounded by the impact of corruption both from within the education sector itself, and from the wider public sector.

The professor of political science noted that there was an increasing evidence of how corrupt practices rooted in the wider public sector affects and compels corrupt practices in the tertiary education sector, especially universities, which he said statutorily enjoy some relative autonomy.

“There are examples of how reform policies, formulated with good intentions are often circumscribed by endemic corruption in the public sector, and in their application in the education sector, create their own dynamics of corrupt practices.

“This can be illustrated with examples of how three reform policies by the federal government compel many Vice Chancellors of federal universities to become somewhat ‘compulsorily’, even if in some cases reluctantly, involved in or with endemic corrupt practices in the wider public sector.

“The first reform policy of measure is the Procurement Act 2007, which requires that contracts of certain threshold should seek for approval either at the Ministerial Tenders Board (MTB) or at the Bureau for Public Procurement (BPP). The second is the requirement by Members of the National Assembly that every Vice Chancellor must appear before them to defend their budgetary proposals before funds would be appropriated to their universities.

“The third, which is relatively more recent, is the requirement by the federal government that no university should recruit any staff, even to fill existing vacancies, without at least three layers of approvals by the federal bureaucracy, at the NUC, at the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, and at the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation,” he said.

Jega noted that all three policies in spite of the good intentions, which may have underlined them, not only undermined the relative autonomy of the universities, but have also introduced extraneous relations and influences laden with corrupt practices.

In his remarks, Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, commended the leadership of JAMB for “achieving what no other agencies has achieved in recent past”.

He noted that Nigeria must fight corruption to be liberated.

“Nigeria has a bad reputation of being a corrupt society. Nobody will change that except us. At a moment you see people condemning corruption and the next moment, they engage in it.  We have to sincerely fight it otherwise this nation is doom”, he stated.

However, speaking on what went through his mind when he rejected the huge amount of money, especially as a member of staff of a service that had been maligned over the years, Amah said: “Well, we have to protect the interest of the force, and the interests of the country at large. In all honesty, I take no personal credit. I believe there are very eminently qualified Nigerians out there that are doing great things for our country. To emerge from this stratum of Nigerians is indeed a great pleasure.”

He dedicated the award to the Inspector General of Police, the ICPC and the president.

The decision to confer the award on Amah was based on the recommendation of the Chairman of the ICPC, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye last month.

The ICPC said: “On 24th April 2022, a matter was reported to him that a suspect, one Mr. Ali Zaki convinced Bureau De Change Operators that he has $750,000 which he could sell to them at the rate of N430 to give him the equivalent N322,500,000.

“After a bank staff confirmed the availability of the money at the bank to the victims, the transaction took place. However, the suspect arranged with armed robbers to track and rob the victims while they were transporting the money.

“When the matter was reported to the Police Division in Kano State where SP Daniel Amah was the DPO, they recommended investigations. In the course of the investigation, they traced the principal suspect, Mr. Ali Zaki who offered $200,000 to the SP to kill the case, through a bank staff. The offer was rejected; the bank staff was promptly arrested which led to the arrest of the principal suspect. The $200,000 was recovered and registered as exhibit.

“For this and other acts of integrity, SP Daniel Itse Amah is being conferred with the 2022 Public Service Integrity Awards”, he said.

Owasanoye, said the commission was working assiduously to flush out fake appointments and screen candidates for appointment to position of permanent secretaries amongst other initiatives.

He said findings from investigation revealed that many prospective appointees were implicated for financial impropriety, corrupt practice, failure of code of conduct standards and substance abuse.

He applauded the commitment of the Head of Service to clean up the stable by effective pre appointment screening, noting that the ICPC would continue to play its part.

Owasanoye said the commission was particularly delighted that the awardee was from the Nigeria Police, an institution he said, had often much derided, maligned and under-appreciated.