Prof. Mohammed Isah, Chairman, Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), has called for strict compliance with extant laws and legal documents binding them, for them to be able to achieve their mandate.
Isah said this at a national seminar on anti-corruption, on Thursday in Abuja.
The seminar which had both physical and virtual participants was tagged “Code of Conduct Bureau: Fighting Corruption for Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria”.
He said the seminar became necessary considering the need for post COVID-19 response to economic recess the world was experiencing.
Isah added that the success of the bureau depended on the ability of its staff to do the right things at the right time, according to the rules and regulations binding it.
“For the bureau to excel in discharging its statutory mandate, it must ensure that all its activities are carried out according to the provisions of all its extant laws and all other relevant legal documents.
“If this can be achieved, then the bureau will be ranked as one of the best anti-corruption agencies across the globe,” he said.
Speaking, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, said that digital transformation in the fight against corruption in the country would go a long way in curbing it.
Pantami, who was represented by the Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency, Mr Kashifu Abdullahi, said it was important to ensure efficiency and transparency in government services.
“If you digitise government processes, nobody will have monopoly of what to do and nobody will do things based on his or her discretion because the process would be automated.
“Everything is automated, simple, open and it is citizen-centric, so this is going to democratise government service delivery whereby it will ensure accountability,” he said.
A keynote speaker, Prof. Olufemi Mimiko, a lecturer of political science with Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun, said corruption negatively impacted and undermined the possibilities of development of any nation.
In his paper, titled ‘Impact of Public Sector Corruption for Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria’, Mimiko listed election financing and a culture which gave privileges to wealth over integrity, as part of the corruption drivers in the country.
He called on the bureau to put up preventive mechanisms to tackle the menace. (NAN)
