Tag: ICPC

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has said sexual harassment constitutes a corrupt practice that attracts imprisonment of not less than seven years.

The commission’s Secretary, Mr. Clifford Oparaodu, announced this yesterday in Abuja at a one-day sensitisation workshop on: Sexual Harassment in Tertiary Institutions.

Oparaodu said ICPC regarded sexual harassment as a corrupt practice; hence, there was a need for victims to know their rights and how to seek justice.

The ICPC scribe expressed concern that sexual gratification has become a form of “illegal tender” in many institutions.

“Sexual harassment is a form of corruption,” he satressed.

Oparaodu said it is a deviation from the norm for an official to use his/her office or position to demand, receive, obtain, or attempt to obtain any form of sexual gratification for him to perform his duties.

“Ideally, official duties ought to be carried out with integrity, good conscience and diligence, without the expectation of any unlawful benefit,” he said.

According to him, Section 2 (f) of the ICPC Act states that gratification includes any service or favour of any description.

“Section 8 of the ICPC Act states: ‘Any person who corruptly asks for, receives, or obtains any property or benefit of any kind for himself or any other person, is guilty of an offence of official corruption and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.’

“It is pertinent to note that unlawful benefits are not always pecuniary and it is disheartening that sexual gratification has become a form of ‘illegal tender’ in many institutions.

“Staff members have been found to use their office to demand and receive sexual benefits from other staff and students in exchange for good grades or other favours,” Oparaodu said.

The ICPC scribe regretted that due to the fear of stigmatisation or further victimisation, many targets of such demands are forced to succumb.

“This is in order to avoid dire consequences and denial of benefits to which they may ordinarily even be entitled.

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“The culture of silence has allowed sexual harassment to thrives, but ICPC is working relentlessly to ensure that with sensitisation and appropriate policy implementation, this culture would gradually change,” he said.

Oparaodu said the ICPC was determined to end the ugly practice as it had established a Sexual Harassment Unit with focus on prevention of sexual harassment in tertiary and secondary institutions.

The ICPC chief said the commission’s move would help the country to address the issue of sexual gratification and abuse of office and power by officials.

He explained that the purpose of the workshop was to educate students about how to easily contact the ICPC, report harassment, and gather evidence in a way that would aid the commission’s investigations.

In a paper, titled: Sexual Harassment, An Offence Against the Individual/A Crime Against Society, the Deputy Director of Proceed of Crime Department at the ICPC, Mr. Adenekan Shogunle, urged participants to regard the fight as a collective one.

Shogunle urged youths not to accept sexual harassment, saying the menace must be stopped to ensure the safety of educational institutions for learning.

“What is essentially a social disorder has become normal in many tertiary institutions.

“The absence of effective grievance remedial mechanisms and prevalent culture of silence, social tolerance has left many female students at the mercy of rabid predators.

“In a bid for justice, survivors are taking matters into their own hands; naming perpetrators and sharing experiences on social media,” he said.

In a paper, Assistant Director of Legal Unit at ICPC in a paper, Mrs. Peace Aroch, said sexual harassment has psychological implications which is connected with the mental or emotional state of the survivor.

Mrs. Aroch said sexually-harassed persons commonly experience stress, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said sexual harassment was still being under-reported in spite of its social media posts.

The director noted that sexual harassment was still being under-reported because of issues of trust, security, fear and poor financial standing of survivors.

Aroch called on the private and public sectors to establish their workplaces sexual harassment policies.

She said that they could make recourse to ICPC’s sexual harassment policy to prepare their own.

In her paper, the Policy Lead Gender for Mobile Initiative, Sarah Egbo, urged institution leaders to demonstrate a strong commitment to addressing sexual harassment.

She also called for the involvement of institutions in policy development and implementation, ensure transparency in reporting, investigation and decision making.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) has explained how heads of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) are put under investigation when they are appointed.

The commission noted that some of the heads of government organisations fall prey to corruption and blackmail from their subordinates because they did not read and understand some of the rules of the agency.

It said these subordinates who misled the head of some agencies, would turn around to send anonymous petitions against them to the commission.

The agency attributed this to a lack of administrative experience which has led some heads of agencies, particularly academics into culpability in acts of corruption.

The ICPC chairman, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, said this in Abuja at the Behaviour Change Conference and Exhibition 2023, with the theme, ‘Anti-Corruption Interventions in Nigeria-A Behavioral Change Perspective of What Needs To Shift’ organised by MacArthur Foundation, Akin Fadeyi Foundation, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Accountability Lab Nigeria and other partners.

Owasanoye specifically recalled that those in the academics who headed one agency or another became ICPC’s suspects within one year as a result of one infraction or the other.

He said: “And you could see that many of them, walking blind, lacked administrative experience either because they are misled or because they have not read circulars and guidelines that say you can do this, you can do this, you can’t do that.”

 “Imagine somebody who hitherto held a global reputation, who won consultancy, earns $20,000, why does he want to come and steal money from an MDA? Except somebody has set a banana peel for him to enable them to do what they want to do and they need to put him in that trap. And then, if he refuses, then they will orchestrate a petition to ICPC, to EFCC, then the man will come and then embarrass him.”

Owasanoye said most of the people who indulged in such acts were faceless civil servants who led the heads of agencies into default in the first place.

The outgoing ICPC chairman recalled the experience of the head of an agency who wanted to embark on an international trip and was mischievously misled by the agency that his estacode was $900 instead of the approved $600.

Owasanoye said that for circumspection and refusal by the head of the agency, he would have walked into a boobytrap of official abuse culminating in corruption.

The ICPC boss said it was wrong to tag all Nigerians as corrupt in financial or other dealings of human endeavours.

“At one of the recent Policy Dialogues organised by the ICPC, two very vocal participants boisterously but erroneously maintained that Nigerians who are not corrupt are those who have not had the opportunity to abuse, or collude in the abuse, of public office, authority or position.

“This erroneous belief by relatively few people that all Nigerians are corrupt can be considered in the light of the traditional anti-corruption interventions in Nigeria and the recent efforts towards expanding the focus of anti-corruption interventions to include the behavioural change approach.

“From my experience in leading the anti-corruption fight at PACAC (Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption) and the ICPC, I can tell you categorically that not all Nigerians are corrupt,” Owasanoye said.

The Founder of the Akin Fadeyi Foundation, Akin Fadeyi said: “This event was not just to showcase our work, it was strategic to reevaluate our scorecards and redesign more robust templates aimed at scaling up our milestones in measurable impactful proportions.

Read Also: ICPC urges political class, others to shun corruption

“We are excited this event was successful and was well attended by experts and the international development community. It is imperative to convey our gratitude to the Nigerian Media across-board especially, as they have been the sustained strategic partners through which our efforts are conveyed to the larger populace.

The Country Director, MacArthur Foundation, Dr Kole Shettima, wondered when Nigeria’s politicians would be self-reformed to work for national interest, rather than their personal interest that harm national interests.

The Country Director, UNODC, Oliver Stolpe, who was represented by Ms. Lilian Ekeanyanwu, said: “The fight against corruption is not complete without addressing issues of transparency, integrity, and accountability. At the core of these values is behavioural change or the attitudes of citizens and their government. As we already know, combatting and preventing corruption requires a holistic framework and multi-sectoral approach.”