…As Chido Onumah named chair of WIN board
Our Reporter, Abuja, with Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
The maiden sub-regional conference organised by African Centre for Media and Information Literacy (AFRICMIL), ended just over a week ago with a call for Nigeria and other countries in West Africa to legislate whistleblowing and whistleblower protection to tackle corruption in the region.
The two-day event themed, “Reducing Corruption in West Africa: The Importance of Whistleblowing and Whistleblower Protection Legislations,” took place at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Academy, Abuja. It was held in collaboration with the Progressive Impact Organisation for Community Development (PRIMORG) and other partners.
Ikengaonline reports that the push for whistleblower protection legislation aims to safeguard individuals who courageously speak out against corruption, ensuring they are not victimised or silenced. It was also to empower citizens in West African countries to report corruption, fostering a culture of transparency and accountability in governance.
In his welcome address, the coordinator of AFRICMIL, Dr. Chido Onumah said for the past seven years, “under a project called Corruption Anonymous (CORA) supported by the MacArthur Foundation, we have been working with the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), a unit in the Federal Ministry of Finance which manages the whistleblowing policy, and other relevant stakeholders in both government and civil society to promote the whistleblowing policy introduced by the Nigerian government in December 2016 to fight corruption in the country.”
He, however, hinted that beyond what they have managed to achieve in Nigeria, the bigger picture was always to push the whistleblowing advocacy beyond the shores of Nigeria to its neighbours in the Sub-region.
“Nonetheless, AFRICMIL’s modest achievements in promoting whistleblowing in Nigeria fired up the zeal to extend the advocacy beyond the country’s borders to neighbours on the west coast of the continent,” Onumah said.
The keynote Speaker, Dr Etannibi Alemika, who spoke on the event theme, emphasised whistleblowing and the protection of whistleblowers as critical tools for combating corruption, promoting good governance, and ensuring accountability across the West African subregion.
He said: “A robust legislation on whistleblowing and whistleblower protection can contribute to high detection of corrupt practices and collection of reliable evidence for prosecution and conviction.”
According to him, Nigeria has enacted several laws against corruption and established many agencies with responsibilities for preventing and combating corrupt practices, but regrettably the measures have not yielded desired results.
He also said Nigeria’s whistleblower policy, introduced in December 2016, was initially well-received, with several reports leading to the exposure of corrupt practices and recovery of huge funds. He also regretted that the policy’s momentum was lost due to various challenges, including the departure of the Minister of Finance, difficulties in verifying authentic whistleblowers, and indecisions over monetary compensation.
Alemika said the whistleblower policy was meant to be a short-term measure, paving the way for comprehensive whistleblowing and whistleblower protection legislation. However, he said unfortunately, the anticipated law was not enacted due to inertia from the executive and legislative branches.
He said even though the Federal Executive Council approved a Whistle-Blower Bill in December 2016, six years after the policy’s introduction, the passing of the law has remained uncertain.
The keynote speaker compared Nigeria’s situation with other African countries, noting that the majority rely on criminal law and law enforcement agencies to prevent and combat corruption and related offences.
“Many countries in West Africa have not recorded significant success in combating corruption despite enacting laws and establishing agencies to fight corrupt practices in different sectors of society.
“Existing anti-corruption legislation in the majority of West African countries lacks adequate provision on whistleblowing and whistleblower protection. Consequently, the potential of whistleblowing in preventing and combating corruption has not been adequately explored, developed and released.
“Protection of whistleblowers is vital to the success of its use as an anti-corruption measure. Perpetrators of corruption are politically and economically powerful and do not hesitate to carry out reprisal against whistleblowers.
“The purpose of whistleblower protection legislation is to guarantee confidentiality and anonymity of individuals who provide information on corrupt practices and also to defend them when they face reprisal and persecution from those involved in corruption that they reported,” he said.
Similarly, Mr. Cheikh Toure, Country Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), remarked that the protection of reporting persons and whistle-blowers has remained one of the most effective tools to prevent, detect and ultimately prosecute corruption cases. He also argued that a robust reporting and protection system is a cornerstone of the fight against corruption and contributes to institutional accountability.
Toure noted that Article 33 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) requires States parties to “consider incorporating into (their) domestic legal systems appropriate measures to provide protection against any unjustified treatment for any person who reports in good faith and on reasonable grounds to the competent authorities any facts concerning offences established in accordance with the Convention.”
He Added that the conference was timely and perfectly in line with the worldwide recognition of the importance of whistleblowers in the fight against corruption, and the need to protect them effectively.
Ikengaonline reports that the conference produced a communique bearing panel resolutions on stronger legal protections, secure reporting channels, public awareness initiatives, and comprehensive support systems to protect and empower whistleblowers.
It highlighted the essential role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in driving legislative reforms and called for broader collaboration between CSOs, legal experts, international partners, and government institutions to push for stronger protections for whistleblowers.
The Conference led to the formation of the Whistleblowing Advocacy Coalition of West Africa (WACOWA), a platform created by civil society organisations and anti-corruption agencies to strengthen the fight against corruption in West Africa through whistleblowing.
Part of the highlight of the conference was the unveiling of the Coordinator of AFRICMIL, Dr. Chido Onumah, as the new chair of the board of the global body for whistleblowers, Whistleblowing International Network, WIN, by Anna Myers, its executive director, in her goodwill message to the very successful Conference.
As Godwin Onyeacholem, AFRICMIL’s Senior Programmes Manager, reports: “The conference lived up to its billing, featuring physical and online participants with over 100 persons including civil society actors, law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies, government agencies, development partners, media and delegates from Benin, Togo, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal and Mali attending physically. Not forgetting a battery of virtual local and foreign participants including Whistleblowers International Network (WIN) and Whistleblowers of America (WoA).”
