Home FEATURES War Against Corruption: ICPC Storms Schools To Recruit Youths

War Against Corruption: ICPC Storms Schools To Recruit Youths

The Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (ICPC), Ekpo Nta

 

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) has stormed higher educational institutions in the country to enroll youths in the renewed war against corruption.

Consequently, about 150 students from the Universities, 100 from the Polytechnics and 100 from Colleges of Education as well as other youths who are not students are being enrolled for the purpose.

The youths would soon be inducted at a conference to be organized by the ICPC.

An Executive member in the ICPC, Professor Olu Aina, standing in for the commission’s Chairman, Ekpo Nta, disclosed this during a meeting with the Senate of the National Association of Nigerian Students at the Commission’s Board Room in Abuja.

Aina said that the conference to be tagged: “Mobilising Nigerian Youth Against Corruption,” has been scheduled to hold on November 24 and 25, 2015 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

Aina said that the ICPC strongly believed that the students should be veritable partners in the anti-corruption war, adding that ICPC has been encourage to initiate a youth conference against corruption by their vibrancy.

The Conference, he said, was the outcome of ICPC’s just concluded Zonal Advisory Consultative Assembly on corruption, which took place in Ibadan, Oyo State, where various youth organizations, including the National Association of Nigerian Students, spontaneously demanded to be involved in the fight against corruption.

“The ICPC therefore concluded plans to mobilise Nigerian youths from all over the countr, for the purpose of enlightening, educating and conscientising them on the ills of corruption and empowering them to own the fight in collaboration with its technical partners, notably the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNDP, DFID, Supervisory and Development Agencies of Government in the Tertiary Education Sector, Anti-Corruption Agencies and the National Orientation Agency.”

​Aina said the Conference is in conformity with Article 13 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, which requires each State Party “to promote the active participation of individuals and groups ….. and to raise public awareness regarding the existence, causes and gravity of, and threat posed by corruption”.

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He expressed the hope that at the end of the Conference, the Nigerian youth would have been properly motivated, without compulsion, to embrace the new vigour of the current Administration in the fight against corruption and prepare themselves as responsible future leaders.

The Conference, Aina said, would have four sessions featuring, among others, an opening ceremony, interactive sessions on various angles to fight corruption and excursion to key institutions in Abuja.

The ICPC, he said, decided to bring in NANS from the point of organizing and planning of the conference so as to make it a youth affair from the very beginning.

He said he was happy to learn that the factionalization of the body had been resolved.

In response, the NANS, through its President, Usman, lauded the initiative of the Commission as being proactive and informed the Planning Committee that the Association was willing to partner with the ICPC in organising the National Conference and in the fight to neutralize corruption.

He assured the Committee that there had been no factions of the NANS for the past three years and that the body was legitimate.

He also assured the Committee that the nomination of participants to attend the Conference would cut across the various tertiary institutions, and youth parliament organisations in the country.

The student body also suggested that a rally be conducted before the Conference to create awareness for the National Conference and that subsequently the Conference be held at grassroot levels and not limited only to the national level. [myad]

 

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