The African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) on Thursday, October 17, 2019, launched the second year report of its Corruption Anonymous (CORA) project with the theme, “Protecting Whistleblowers in Nigeria.”
The event which held at Shehu Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja was chaired by Professor Abdullahi Shehu of the National Open University of Nigeria, also featured a three-member panel of discussants made up of Johnson Oludare of PICA, Ezenwa Nwagwu of SAY No Campaign and Andrew Mamedu of Action Aid.
In his welcome address, the Coordinator of AFRICMIL, Dr. Chido Onumah said although whistle-blowers are the first-line of defence against crime, corruption and cover-ups, they are often scared of submitting tips for fear of retaliation. He noted that AFRICMIL through CORA, its pro-whistleblowing project, which is supported by the John D and Catherine T MacArthur foundation, has been supporting whistle-blowers who are being victimised every day.
Onumah said, “Whistle-blowers are still afraid to come forward for fear of retaliation. In the last two years of our engagement with the whistleblowing policy as well as with whistleblowers, the major issue has been the lack of a legal framework to protect whistleblowers who face intimidation or threats.” “In addition to the need for whistleblower law and robust protection for whistleblowers, it is also important for service providers (government ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs) to be at the driving seat of instituting whistleblower policies and infrastructure to ease the process of reporting in the agencies”, he said.
In his remark, Africa Director, MacArthur Foundation, Dr Kole Shettima, said exposing corrupt practices in the country is a non negotiable venture as only the poor pay dearly for the challenges posed by corruption.
He said that MacArthur was concerned about the standard of living of Nigerians and the need for good governance and accountability. Nwagwu, the convener of Say No Campaign, stated that unless the federal government provides a legal frame work with which whistle blowers could function well, Nigerians may not support the policy or the anti-corruption fight. He called on Nigerians to collectively lend their voices to the campaign for the passage of the whistleblower policy into law as it will benefit them more.
Oludare, Assistant Director at the Federal Ministry of Finance and head of whistleblowing unit, Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), commended AFRICMIL for working hard to promote the whistleblowing policy and for supporting PICA realise its aim. Speaking on the sincerity of the Federal Government in implementing the whistleblowing policy, Professor Shehu Abdullahi of the National Open University (NOUN) called on government to be transparent in the process of recovering stolen funds and assets and to also try and keep its side of the bargain by paying whistle-blowers the percentage it promised them when they submit tips.
He noted that the body language of the federal government would tell if whistle-blowers and Nigerians will continue to submit tips or even support the fight against corruption. Embattled whistleblowers, Murtala Mohammed who was an auditor at the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and Sambo Abdullahi, a former auditor at the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trade PLC (NBET) , also called on the federal government to intervene in their ordeal as they have faced series of intimidation and harassment, including sack from work and denial of salaries because they exposed fraudulent practices at their places of work.
