By Doyin Ojosipe
Citizens who featured as panelists and contributors on a radio town hall meeting in Abuja have expressed uncertainty about blowing the whistle despite understanding that corruption affects every one and hinders development of the country.
They noted that although corruption was endemic, it was almost difficult to do away with due to the victimisation a whistleblower may face as a result of the lack of protection of his or her identity.
Faith Obakoya, a trader at the market in Dutse Alhaji, a suburb of Abuja, who was one of the panelists noted that she would only blow the whistle in extreme cases where the life or health of a customer was at risk, but not for lesser wrongdoing such as charging higher prices for products.
She said, “We sell in the same market, exposing any of my fellow traders will create enmity between us if the person gets to find out that I was the one who tried to ‘spoil her market’, except if I will employ another means but going to stop customers from buying from them because of corrupt practices, I don’t think I would want to do that.”
She said if people were sure of protection, they would likely blow the whistle.
Chisom, an audience who called in to share her thoughts recounted how she was exposed by officers of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC), when she tried to expose a neighbour for wrongdoing.
She said, “my neighbour was connecting and disconnecting light, whenever NEPA (AEDC) wants to do connection and disconnection, he will remove his wire, but when they finish disconnection, he will hang it back himself. So I called the people in charge but to my greatest surprise when they came, they told him that it was his neighbour that informed them.”
According to her, the fact that ‘appropriate authorities’ do not understand the importance of protecting whistleblowers makes it really difficult to blow the whistle.
Another caller who identified as Patrick said he was not willing to expose corruption, alleging that security agencies were always quick to expose the identity of whistleblowers.
“If you report acts of corruption, the security agencies will be the ones to name you and you automatically become an enemy, they will witch hunt you…,” he said.
However, one of the panelists, Jelili Hassan, an auto mechanic, said although some mechanics were not honest, he had never been engaged in corruption as he had for the most time dealt with his customers with utmost sincerity.
He affirmed that he was not only going to expose wrong deeds but was ready to caution his apprentices in case such act was noticed among them.
In his call to action, another panelist, James Ugochukwu, project manager at SayNoCampaign, urged the federal government to stay true to its mandate to stop corruption by protecting the citizens when they report fraudulent acts.
He also urged Nigerians to monitor their environment and choose a more convenient method of reporting corruption in order not to be uncovered.
Ugochukwu said whistleblowing against wrong deeds among common Nigerians could not be ignored as eliminating corruption starts with them.
Also on the panel was Uzo Amadi, public affairs analyst, who said more needed to be done on the protection of whistleblowers, noting that even if technology was introduced for reports to be done anonymously antigraft agencies must be willing and honest enough not to try and reveal the identity of an anonymous whistleblower.
“Government has responsibility to give whistleblowing a legal backing so that even if a person reports and something wrong happens, he would have something to fall back on.
The radio town hall meeting which aired on RayPower 100.5 FM was organised by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) in collaboration with the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development (PRIMORG).
The programme was part of AFRICMIL’s Corruption Anonymous (CORA) project supported by MacArthur Foundation.
