Our Reporter, Abuja
Anti-corruption and law enforcement agencies have been challenged to put more effort to sustain the whistleblowing policy in the country by protecting whistleblowers through the maintenance of the confidentiality of the whistleblowers’ identity as well as the information they provided.
Anti-corruption Lawyer and activist, Godwin Chigbu, stated this on Tuesday in Abuja during a Workshop for anti-corruption and security agencies organised by Africa Centre for Information and Media Literacy, AFRICMIL, in collaboration with Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development, PRIMORG.
Delivering a paper titled, “Whistleblowing in Nigeria: The Role of Anti-corruption and Law Enforcement Agencies,” Chigbu said the whistleblowing policy has suffered severe setback in the country because people were afraid to volunteer information on corrupt acts and wrongdoings to security agencies because of the fear that information about themselves and the disclosure they had made may be compromised, thereby putting their lives and those of their loved ones in danger.
“The security agencies have not helped the whistleblowing policy by maintaining confidentiality of the subject matter of whistleblowing as well as the confidentiality of the identity of the whistleblower. If a whistleblower provides an important information by reporting a wrongdoing to security agencies and before he/she gets home, the same information has been relayed to those he reported, this will not encourage others to blow the whistle,” said Chigbu.
The Lawyer while reviewing the Anti-Corruption Bill of the Federal Government against the internationally accepted benchmark listed the role of anti-corruption agencies and law enforcement agencies in ensuring a successful whistleblower regime to include: “Compulsory receipt of disclosures; Conduct proper investigation of disclosures; Conduct proper prosecution of offences disclosed; Whistleblower protection,” which involves, maintaining confidentiality of the fact of the disclosure, maintain confidentiality of the identity of the whistleblower; and providing physical protection to the whistleblower (and his family) where required.
Chigbu also reminded participants of some specific extant legislations and policies imposing confidentiality obligations on the security agencies like the Nigeria Police Force, The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and Nigeria Security & Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC.
He, however, insisted that the draft bill was hamstrung because it seeks only to protect the whistleblower without considering other people around him or her. For instance he said the FEC approved bill does not consider protection also for people close to the whistleblower including his or her family members.
He also faulted the bill for seeking to domicile the emergent implementing agency, the National Office, for the management of whistleblowing policy within the Federal Ministry of Finance when in fact its core responsibility is security related, arguing that an independent body would be better suited for the purpose.
Chigbu further explained that the bill missed a big opportunity to harvest more whistleblowers especially in this era of insecurity by its narrow consideration of reward for only information with monetary value to the Federal Government. He wondered how anyone can quantify information for instance that prevents terrorists from attacking the country and wasting many lives?
The Lawyer also said “fair and expeditious hearing of complaints and actions against allegations of reprisals or reprisal actions was not provided” in the bill as well as “Burden of proof – in cases of reprisals, the burden should be on the person alleged to have taken reprisal action against a whistleblower to prove that his action is not a retaliation against the disclosure,” among other contentious provisions.
He also called for caution in imposing sanctions where ‘false information’ was seemingly provided by a whistleblower in the bill, arguing that the determination of what conduces to false information is indeed “a matter of fact.”
In his presentation, “Understanding Nigeria’s Whistleblowing Policy,” Johnson Oludare of Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), and a Deputy Director,
Federal Ministry of Finance, defined a whistleblower as “a person who voluntarily discloses to the Federal Government of Nigeria, possible misconduct or violation that has occurred, is ongoing or is about to occur with specific concerns in the public interest.”
He also described whistleblowing as an “anti-corruption programme that encourages people to voluntarily disclose information about fraud, bribery, looted government funds, financial misconduct, mismanagement of government assets and any other form corruption or theft.”
He further adumbrated that the policy has three main components: Channel of information and the type of information to be reported; Reward for reporting fraud, which is based on the quantum of funds or monetary value of assets recovered by the Federal Government as a result of disclosed information (ranges from 2.5% – 2.5%); finally, the protection of whistleblower guaranteed in sections 6 & 12 of the Policy, and also in Part V the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved 2022 whistleblowing bill.
Oludare further stated the whistleblowing policy has been designed in such a manner to protect adequately, the whistleblower.
“It is important to emphasize that the Whistleblowing Policy has been designed in such a way that it gives adequate protection to the whistle-blower.
“As a matter of fact, Part V section 15 of the FEC approved Whistleblowing Bill 2023, specifically spelt out Whistleblowing and protection of whistleblowers.
The Bill further empowers the National office not to disclose the source of its information by way of protecting the informant, as Section 24 (1) states thus: “The National Office or appropriate authority shall not disclose any information that may identify or tend to identify a whistleblower or any person, unless the whistleblower consents to the disclosure,” he said.
Oludare, however, noted that in spite of the many benefits that have accrued from the whistleblowing policy including the recovery of huge sums of looted funds, Nigerians were yet to take ownership of the policy, which can be attributed to the fact that currently, there is no legal protection (for now) of those who blow the whistle on corruption.
Earlier, the Coordinator of AFRICMIL, Dr Chido Onumah, in his welcome address said since 2017, under a project called Corruption Anonymous (CORA), AFRICMIL has been working with the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), a unit in the Federal Ministry of Finance, and other relevant stakeholders in government, civil society and the media, to promote the whistleblowing policy.
He noted that whistleblowing has become one of the most effective measures for exposing corruption and promoting accountability in society. According him, at its inception as an anti-corruption programme, many Nigerians embraced it leading to many recoveries of looted funds and property. But he observed sadly that the enthusiasm of citizens in whistleblowing has waned because of lack of protection for whistleblowers who have been subjected to various kinds of retaliations for exposing corrupt acts.
“However, as reports of disclosures continued to rise in the public sector, whistleblowers in different government agencies increasingly became victims of vicious retaliation in the absence of a protection law and despite provisions for their safety as captured in Section 6 of the whistleblowing policy.
“Faced by lack of protection, citizens, mostly public sector workers, began to lose interest in blowing the whistle on corruption and other types of wrongdoing because of fear of consequences. Workers are facing all kinds of punishment from suspension, through denial of salaries and other benefits, punitive transfers, denial of promotion to outright dismissal,” Onumah said.
He also said the aim of the workshop was to engage strategic stakeholders in the anti-corruption ecosystem in the bid to reverse the growing lack of interest in whistleblowing among citizens.
The AFRICMIL Workshop which was supported by the MacArthur Foundation; the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), and the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development (PRIMORG), had participants drawn from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria Security & Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
