Kingsley Nwezeh reviews the fourth National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Service, with focus on the education sector, organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, in collaboration with the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, OHSoF, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, and the Ford Foundation at the Presidential Villa in Abuja
That the nation is beset with endemic corruption in all sectors of governance cannot be over-emphasised. Even with the existence of anti-graft agencies, this systemic scourge has continued to ravage the country.
The manifestation of this challenge in the education sector is not any different.
Corruption in education manifests in different ways such as recruitment of
unqualified or unfit persons to teach at primary, secondary or tertiary levels,
admission racketeering, examination malpractice, diversion of revenue for
and within the sector, operation of illegal academic institutions especially at
the tertiary level, abuse of power and procurement rules by management and
governing councils both of academic or regulatory institutions among others.
Waging against War against Corruption
In view of the foregoing, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has remained relentless in waging a vicious war against the hydra-headed monster.
It was in furtherance of this objective that the agency organised the 4th National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Service.
Speaking at the summit themed: “Corruption and the Education Sector”, held at the Conference Hall of the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Chairman of ICPC, Prof Bolaji Owasanoye (SAN), said the summit organised by the agency since 2019 was a reflection of the
commitment to fight corruption as one of the significant developmental
global challenges of our time.
“This year we have chosen the theme:
‘Corruption and the Education Sector’ because corruption in education has
been rightly described as stealing the future education being the medium for
transmission of knowledge and values.
“Once education sector is corrupted the
foundation for future ethical leadership and labour force is destroyed. In response to the recent epidemic of sexual harassment in the education sector. ICPC has constituted a special team on investigation and prosecution of sexual harassment in secondary and tertiary institutions”, he said.
Owasanoye noted that “in collaboration with civil society, we are in the process of introducing a model policy on sexual
harassment for academic institutions to adopt we have also secured some
major convictions including a professor.
“ICPC has escalated its prevention mandate in the face of costly, time
consuming and unpredictable outcomes of investigation and prosecution.
“In this regard, we are strengthening the Anti-corruption and Transparency
Monitoring Unit (ACTU) in MDAs. For the education sector, we
collaborated with other institutions including NUC and NBTE and much
more recently with JAMB our co-host for this event.
“With JAMB and DSS, we conducted last year a series of undercover operations across the country on corruption in the university admissions processes leading to the busting of syndicates and arrest of its leaders responsible for compromising IJMB and JUPEB”.
He said the ICPC had intensified its scrutiny of personnel
and capital cost of Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) leading to proactive restraining of surpluses or
duplications in the budget.
“Just last week the commission in collaboration with the budget office and stakeholders met with some MDAs on the recurring surpluses in their payroll to determine proactive measures to
improving the budget process”, he said.
He said the measures were designed to separate outright fraud from
administrative lapses.
“We also actively review the budget to prevent abuse by
senior civil servants and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), who sometimes personalise budgetary
allocation for direct benefit. In one case, a PEP successfully increased the
budget of an agency in order for the agency to buy a property from him.
“In another case, the PEP inserted soft projects worth over N7 billion for a catchment
population of about one million people in the name of empowerment. Both
cases are under investigation”, he said.
He further stated that
ICPC reviewed special funds meant to improve education delivery such as
UBEC and TETFUND which revealed continued abuses and breach of procurement standards and compromise of statutory mandates while a system study and review on SUBEB in six states for 2019-2020 revealed that the intention of UBE law to support states to improve basic education was frustrated by lack of commitment by state governments in not providing matching grants amongst
other defaults.
“The capacity and commitment of states and tertiary institutions
to access UBE fund and TETFUND respectively as anticipated by law
remains highly questionable.
“In support of government’s effort to improve revenue generation the
commission continues to investigate diversion of tax and other statutory
revenues as part of routine investigation and has recovered N1.264 billion this
fiscal year”, he said.
As part of the efforts to sanitise the public service and upscale integrity he said, the commission had collaborated with the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation (OHCSF) to flush out fake
appointments and screen candidates for appointment to position of permanent
secretaries amongst other initiatives.
“The findings thus far indicate that many
prospective appointees are implicated for financial impropriety, corrupt
practice, failure of code of conduct standards and substance abuse. The
commitment of the head of service to clean up the stable by effective pre
appointment screening is commendable and ICPC will continue to play its
part.
“We are vigorously exploiting technology solutions to some of the systemic corruption we have unearthed” in collaboration with the National Information Technology Agency (NITDA).
Owosonanye also said that the ICPC management had received threats and sponsored attacks and campaign of calumny.
“Corruption has fought back in different ways – by attacks on the
chairman, board, management and officers including threats of physical and
or psychological attacks, blackmail, sponsored campaigns of calumny,
mobilisation of political figures to cut down our powers and budget,
infiltration of the commission by fifth columnists, compromise of unethical
staff, etc.
“In all these, we have remained resolute on our mandate and promise
to Mr President and the nation to do our best. We hereby renew that pledge”, he said.
Buhari Accuses ASUU of Corruption
President Muhammadu Buhari, who was a special guest of honour at the event, pointedly accused the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of involvement in endemic corruption in the education sector just he declared that corruption in the sector undermined federal government’s investment in education.
He said incessant strikes by unions created the impression that government was underfunding education.
He said contrary to such assertions, the academic unions were no less complicit in the systemic corruption in the sector.
Buhari asserted that all lol FCT corruption from the basic to tertiary levels of education greatly undermined government’s investment in the sector.
He also called on stakeholders to demand accountability in the administration of academic institutions and for unions to interrogate the bloated personnel and recurrent expenditure of their institutions even as he implored the unions to work with government to put faces and identities to names on the payroll.
“Incessant strikes especially by unions in the tertiary education often imply that government is grossly underfunding education, but I must say that corruption in the education system from basic level to the tertiary level has been undermining our investment in the sector and those who go on prolonged strikes on flimsy reasons are no less complicit.
“Government and stakeholders in the educational sector are concerned about the manifestation of various forms of corruption in the education sector. I am aware that students in our universities for example, use different terminologies to describe different forms of corruption they experience on our campuses.
There is sorting or cash for marks/grades, sex for marks, sex for grade alterations, examination malpractice, and so on”, he said.
“Sexual harassment has assumed an alarming proportion. Other forms of corruption include pay-roll padding or ghost workers, lecturers taking up full time appointments in more than one academic institution, including private institutions, lecturers writing seminar papers, projects and dissertations for students for a fee, and admission racketeering, to mention only the most glaring corrupt practices.
“I am happy to note that ICPC is investigating and prosecuting sexual harassment as abuse of power in our educational institutions. I approve and encourage them to continue to do so”, he said.
Buhari affirmed that government will continue to fund education within realistically available revenue and urged stakeholders, including the media to advocate for transparency in the amount generated as internally generated revenue by educational institutions and how such funds are expended.
“Corruption in the expenditure of internally generated revenue of tertiary institutions is a matter that has strangely not received the attention of stakeholders in tertiary education, including unions.
“I call on stakeholders to demand accountability in the administration of academic institutions and for unions to interrogate the bloated personnel and recurrent expenditure of their institutions. Let me also implore the unions to work with government to put faces and identities to names on the payroll”, he said.
“I believe that the role of government in education is to guarantee access and establish minimum benchmarks for quality education. Due to declining resources, government cannot bear the cost of funding education alone. I task our academics to attract endowments, research and other grants to universities, polytechnics and colleges of education similar to what obtains in other countries”, he said.
Jega Raises the Alarm
In his keynote address at the summit, former Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, raised the alarm that the education sector was tottering on the precipice following deep-seated graft in the system.
As a result of the situation, he said, Nigeria is perceived as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
He said the effects of corruption in the education sector undermined national capacity to develop requisite national social capital for socio-economic development, adding that no nation developed without adequate and appropriate investment in education. .
He stated that the Nigerian education sector had suffered neglect, chronically underfunded and engulfed in crisis, corrupt practices in the tertiary education sector, especially universities, which he said statutorily enjoyed 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.
Education Minister’s Position
In his submission, Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said Nigeria must fight corruption to be liberated, adding that differences could be made in all sectors no matter how bad it is perceived.
“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 doomed”, he said.
Award for Integrity
In order to encourage acts of honesty, President Buhari conferred the prestigious 2022 Public Service Integrity Award to Superintendent of Police (SP), Daniel Amah, for rejecting a $200,000 bribe from robbers.
Amah is the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Nasarawa Division in Kano State.
The decision to confer the award on Amah was based in 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.
Conclusion
It is expected that constant interrogation of the menace of corruption in the public sector by stakeholders would go a long way in containing graft.
As rightly noted by the ICPC boss, “once education sector is corrupted the
foundation for future ethical leadership and labour force is destroyed”.
Quotes
Corruption has fought back in different ways – by attacks on the
chairman, board, management and officers including threats of physical and
or psychological attacks, blackmail, sponsored campaigns of calumny,
mobilisation of political figures to cut down our powers and budget,
infiltration of the commission by fifth columnists, compromise of unethical
staff
I call on stakeholders to demand accountability in the administration of academic institutions and for unions to interrogate the bloated personnel and recurrent expenditure of their institutions. Let me also implore the unions to work with government to put faces and identities to names on the payroll
