Why we’re moving against airport officials, by ICPC boss

Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) Chairman Ekpo Nta has explained why the commission is staging sting operations to arrest perpetrators of corrupt practices at the country’s international airports.

In December last year, the ICPC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Ministry of Aviation (FMA) in Lagos, and set up a Project Advisory Committee on the Corruption Risk Assessment (CRA) in the aviation sector, which, since March, has culminated in the arrest of officials at airports across the country.

The ICPC boss added that the operation became necessary because the airports are the entry points for foreigners coming into Nigeria and determine their first impression of the country.

He said: “The first contact a foreigner has with the country is at the international airport and the impression he takes away from there will decide for him how the country should be assessed. So, we have taken some steps to address that issue and I’m very happy that when we started that exercise we got together all the agencies working at the airport: Customs, Immigration, FAAN, NDLEA, Quarantines; all of the agencies, and we had this charter and agreement that we must change our attitudes in terms of what some people call ‘low level corruption’ at the airports.

“But this so-called low level of corruption determines the face of our corporate image, so we did sensitisation in December last year and told them we would be coming. Maybe they did not believe, because after one, two months, they did not see anything, or so they thought; they didn’t know we were doing underground surveillance. And so in March, we started public arrest and that sent a message that needed to be sent.”

After the collaboration between the ICPC and the aviation ministry, public enlightenment campaigns against corruption were carried out at the airports, as well as surveillance and intelligence gathering.

Last month the commission revealed that reports since the last sting operation in June showed that there was an awareness of the presence of the ICPC at the airports and this had reduced impunity.

Speaking on ChannelsTV on Sunday night, Nta  warned people from trying to bribe the commission’s officials.

He said: “One or two persons who have tried it from outside are facing the courts now,” he said. “One interesting case happened that they were given an account to pay money into, thinking it was the person’s account, not knowing it was our recovery account, and when we issued the receipt, it dawned on them the person what we are here for.”