Upright4Nigeria: UK funded CSOs launch campaign against corruption in Nigeria

A civil society group, Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI), has identified greed, godfatherism and gratification as the bedrock of corruption in Nigeria.

Mrs Babafunke Fagbemi, the Executive Director of CCSI, made the assertion in an interview in Lagos.

“From the research we conducted in the six geo-political zones, the insight we got from it is that greed, godfatherism and gratification are the bedrock of corruption in Nigeria.

“If you look at these three, you can see how they play out at the level of government, at home, among CSOs and the various socioeconomic groups across Nigeria.

“The feedback from the survey is that if we want to fight corruption, we must change our moral values and teach our children about integrity, honesty and transparency,” Fagbemi said.

She said though, behaviour was hard to change, everyone has a role to play in changing the corruption narrative of the country, which led to inequality, poverty, infrastructural decay and high rate of unemployment.

According to her, to promote a corruption averse society, a group of CSOs launched a campaign: “Upright for Nigeria-Stand against Corruption” to challenge the current beliefs that make corruption acceptable.

She said that the project, with a five-year timeline, “hopes to instill positive values such as integrity, honesty, transparency and hard work to change the nation’s corruption narrative locally and internationally’’.

The campaign is funded by the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) and designed to increase the participation of citizens to resist and fight acts of corruption.

She said that the campaign would enhance public demand and attitude for anti-corruption through strengthened, organised, collective and individual actions and voices.

“If corruption is not one of the dragons that we are facing, we would have progressed beyond this level, because Nigeria is one of the richest and most resourceful nations.

“The campaign will influence social norms and attitudes that help corruption to thrive in Nigeria with a view to effecting a social change.

“It will leverage on the social capital and social networks to promote a corruption averse mentality.

“We are going to build the capacity of people at the grassroots to speak out and bring their leaders to account; we have a lot of works to do to support government to change the face of Nigeria,” Fagbemi said.

She said that the CSOs involved in the project are: Action Aid Nigeria (AAN); Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) and Centre for Communication and Social Impact (CCSI).