Whistle blower: A failed policy in the midst of fighting corruption in Nigeria
By Beauty D. Suyibam
In Nigeria, whistle-blowing is an anti-corruption programme that encourages people to voluntarily disclose information about fraud, bribery, looted government funds, financial misconduct, misappropriation of government assets and any other form of corruption or theft to the country’s federal ministry of finance.
The policy which was launched on December 21, 2016 by the federal government came with incentive of 2.5 percent of the recovered funds for anyone who provided tips or information about any financial mismanagement or stolen funds to the ministry’s portal by the Nigeria
government.
Reports indicated that funds recovered through the Whistle-blowing Policy within the first two months of taking effect in the country amounted to over $178 million that were stolen from the government.
According to reports, by June 5, 2017, federal ministry of finance received a total of 2,150 tips from the public, 128 tips came through the website of the ministry, 1,192 was through phone calls, 540 through SMS and 290 through email to the ministry amongst others.
It is really disheartening that the policy as very good as it is, and as it was articulated to fight corruption has not yielded the desired goal as many rumors of corrupt tendencies kept going round without been investigated.
If you follow the trend of the few cases of whistle blowing that we had, it was only the substance that were apprehended but up to now nobody in two, three years has been linked to the act.
For instance there were reports where Ghana must go stuffed with money was found in Kaduna airport but nobody was arrested for having link to the money
There were reports where the Nigerian customs intercepted another one, nobody has been arrested, nobody has been linked to all these. It was people that raised the alarm but nobody was linked to it.
The policy has failed because the authorities have not work the talk. For instance, the man who blew the whistle that led to the recovery of some money but was denied the percentage meant for him.
We were made to understand that the percentage that was supposed to be given to him was not given. That was why the man has to now come up to reveal that he was denied percentage that is due for him based on the arrangement by the Federal government and that was how the issue died down.
The whistle blower policy is not working in Nigeria and we need to make it work. People are no longer willing to blow the whistle because the government is not fulfilling its own part of the obligations.
Government said in the policy that if you blow whistle and they are able to trace that the whistle you blew was correct and it leads to recovery of the substance or the arrest of the suspect, you are entitled to certain percentage of that amount.
That perhaps, may be the reason why in the last one year or so, nobody has blown any whistle because government is not ready to fulfil its own part of the promise.
Many people think it is only when money is involved that one is expected to blow the whistle. They think it is only when money is involved that corruption takes place. People need to be educated more on this policy otherwise it is going no where.
I think government is reluctant on the policy because it was fashioned out to victimize perceived political opponents.
Before, there were perceived opponents who has money, who government perceived to be a threat to them, they used the policy to silenced them. The policy is not working now because there is nobody to harass again, as they are the ones in government.
At the initial stage, the policy was somehow effective but regrettably, it has been abandoned due to lack of political will on the part of the government.
The publicity given to it earlier and euphoria with which people accepted it is gradually fading or dying down. This may not be unconnected with the fact that people are probably scared of being hunted by those involved in shady deals, corruption and mismanagement of public funds.
Another aspect is that individuals don’t see government been serious about it at all. You can see what happened to Magu now. When the National Assembly then, headed by Saraki refused to approved his appointment, the presidency insisted he must be there, believing that he was above board, that he is not a corrupt person but now he has been humiliated out of that same office.
People have lose interest in the whistle blower policy of the federal government because they feel there is a kind of game of deception in the whole thing.
There is absence of concrete action taken over this issue or against Magu and host of others who are within the government circle.
An APC bigwig once openly said if you are a sinner just join the APC and you are forgiven, this kind of game play has made the citizens understand that there is a kind of duplicity in the policy.
The opinion of this Write up is the whistle blower policy gimmick if a highly placed personality in the ruling party will invite any corrupt person to join the APC and have his or her sins forgiven.
