Anti-corruption fights: Actionaid enlists media, CSOs support

 

Kehinde Osasona
Abuja

A call has gone to the Nigerian media to carry out investigative report and change the narrative in terms of reportage of corruption cases in the country.

The Actionaid Project Manager for the SCRAP-C project, Newton Otsemaye, who spoke at a breakfast meeting in Abuja yesterday, called for more awareness on the danger of corruption.

“What we are looking at is neither sanction, nor criminalisation of people involved in corruption rather, we are looking at society and social norms as tools in fighting corruption and how we can leverage on it in disapproving corruption. These are what we shall be looking at in the next four years.

“Also, we want to bring our most treasured partners, the media to speak on what SCRAP-C wants to do in this regards and to equally reach an agreement as collaborators on the importance of shaping opinions and attitude against corruption and which media strategy role to use in scrapping corruption in Nigeria.

“More importantly, the media is expected to tie the effect of corruption reality to issues so that the public can get connected to it in conjunction with the civil society group who had over the years been working in isolation in the fight against corruption.

“We have done a lot though because there is need to complement what the government is doing. The sanctions are good, the enforcements and criminalisation; they are all good but, let’s look at also the society. What role should the society play in terms of fighting corruption.

“Therefore, the project will assess the correlation between social norm and corruption and how social norm can be leverage to fight corruption’’, he said.

The Policy and Campaign Manager, Actionaid, Tunde Aremu, said the project was aimed at simulating citizens to on their own identify corruption when it manifest itself and also speak up and mobilize against it in their respective entities.

 

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