From Okwe Obi, Abuja
In a bid to deepen good governance and to encourage Nigerians to be upright, Accountability Lab Nigeria, has rewarded five people for their integrity in the discharge of their duties.
The winners for this year’s search are: Enuma Charles, Mwalin Naomi Abdu Babayola Mohammed Isa, SP Innocent Ayabotu, and Victoria Bende Barnabas.
At the ceremony, recently in Abuja, the group’s Country Director, Odeh Friday, explained that over 1,700 nominations were received and a panel of independent experts was set to scrutinise them which led to the emergence of the top 5.
Friday said a lack of integrity – which leads to corruption, inequality, and insecurity remains a global challenge, targeted at destroying the country.
He expressed worry that none of the political candidates has put accountability at the forefront of their campaigns.
“If you look at the political candidates none has has put accountability at the forefront of their campaign and it is a big problem for us.
“Because it seems like we are having the same cycle of lack of accountability in our community. But how do we get to the process to ensure that we put people of accountability in the right place?
“The top five we selected are doing fantastic and amazing things. We have seen the director general of the procurement agency who has moved the revenue of the agency from about N400,000 to N1.2 billion.
“Those are the kind of inspirational stories that curb corrupt practices that happens in those kind of sector like contracting.
“When you begin to find people like doing the right thing we can save more money, we can manage more and ensure that quality service is delivered to citizens,” he said.
He wondered why politicians would spend beyond the stipulated N5 billion benchmark instructed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for campaigns.
“Campaign funds have been tagged by INEC as N5 billion but you find out that people are doing donations and spending above N5 billion.
“For me, the thing is who is going to build strong institutions that can stand and deliver on their mandate and carry out the course in which they were established.
“If INEC can stand strong we will not have political parties spending above N5 billion. The new Electoral Act provides for every political party to produce a report of their campaign spending after election.
“I think only two political parties were able to that in 2019. In the 2023 elections, we are not even seeing any of the political parties doing so which is basically a big problem,” he said.
Meanwhile, a former Statistician General, Yemi Kale recalled how he defended his statistics of poverty, health economy among others even though there were not favourable to the government in power.
This is even as he encouraged citizens to be upright in their dealings for the betterment of the country, whether rewarded of not.