From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
A Kaduna-based non-governmental organisation, Legal Awareness for Nigerian Women (LANW), on Tuesday took its anti-corruption campaign project supported by MacArthur Foundation to some strategic locations including streets, schools and market places in Chikun local government area of Kaduna State.
Under its Strengthening Accountability and Transparency in Nigeria’s Public Sector project, the NGO has been training communities in Kaura, Chikun and Soba local government on monitoring and tracking of public projects in their communities as a way of ensuring transparency and accountability in public procurement and expenditures.
Executive Director of LANW, Barrister Rebecca Sako-John, told journalists that, the streets, school and markets anti-campaign was a step further in her organisation’s earlier training and retraining of anti-corruption ambassadors.
Addressing the students and teachers of the Government Junior Secondary School (GJSS), Sabon Tasha, Kaduna, Programme Officer, LANW, Michael Aboh, noted that no one should be left out in corruption matters since it is a phenomenon that cuts across Nigeria’s socioeconomic endeavours.
To Michael, “we sometimes forget that those we have as leaders today started from here. These students will also grow to become leaders in their various capacities a few years from here and, this meeting will remain in their memories for years to come.
“So, in addition to training and retraining of community monitors from the three focal LGA (Kaura, Chikun and Soba), we deem it necessary to move around Chikun this time around as a way of sensitising more people on the subject matter.
“For example, a student that cheats in an examination hall is practising corruption. A trader who put good tomatoes at the surface and put rotten ones under is also corrupt. The tailor who steals part of the client’s clothing to sow for his child is corrupt. So, corruption is beyond what we think. Is everywhere.
“We hope the campaign will touch some mind whether as a student, teacher, trader or artisan and they will henceforth start doing the right thing. We cannot limit the campaign to those in government alone, we all belong to communities and that was why this is very important to us. Nigeria will be better when we have fewer corruption cases”, he hoped.