WE WILL MAKE PUBLIC OFFICERS ACCOUNTABLE

We'll make public officers accountable -ICPC boss

From VAL OKARA, Owerri
Wednesday, March 3 , 2010
The Local Government Integrity Initiative (LGII) anchored by the Independent Corrupt Practices And Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) is aimed at making it impossible for any citizen in Nigeria not accountable to the public to meddle with governance. The chairman of ICPC Justice Emmanuel Ayoola made this declaration in Kano yesterday at the ICPC/ALGON Interactive meeting.

He said: 'We are determined to make every public officer accountable for his or her corrupt conduct, not withstanding that he or she may have acted with good motive or to benefit other persons'. Justice Ayoola said the initiative was designed to ensure participatory governance that would ensure openness and transparency in governance.

However, he said culture of integrity in governance could not take root at any level of government unless the citizens themselves insisted on it. He declared: 'A situation in which any aspect of government is conceived and tolerated as an enterprise that could be permitted to be shrouded in secrecy, mystery and speculation does not indicate a nation determined to embrace integrity and accountability in governance.'

Justice Ayoola therefore has a word for the nation's legislators, judges and politicians:' Where the institutions of democracy including political parties, the legislature and the judiciary function effectively and efficiently in a nation such an action would not easily descend into lawlessness. And a system that tolerates lawlessness in governance, in any form, is a corrupt system.'

He said the purpose of the meeting was to map the way forward to actualisation of a corruption free society where the culture of integrity will take root.

In his speech the ALGON chairman, Kano State, Alhaji. Danladi Isa Kademi, said it was worth noting that the Kano State Government had established the Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission to sustain the fight against corruption.

He commended the state government for not deducting any amount from the allocations to local governments from the federation account.

In fact, he said local governments received allocations from the state government's internal generated revenue.

Abdullahi Gwarzo, the deputy governor who represented Governor Ibrahim Shekarau, commended the ICPC initiative in fighting corruption with many preventive mechanisms

He said the LGII would go a long way to senitising the polity by ensuring that there is a zero level in anti-corruption campaign.