Economic gains of whistle-blowing policy in Nigeria: prospects and challenges (Published)
It is no doubt that corruption is a global plague ravaging world’s economy. Corruption is depleting the scarce economic resources of developed and developing nations though, at varying intensities. Corruption has also been described as the black hole which must be thoroughly covered. In a bid to fighting corruption in the world, the whistle blowing mechanism was adopted by several countries including the USA, UK, South Africa and Nigeria. To complement the efforts of ICPC and EFCC, the whistle-blowing machinery was adopted in Nigeria by the Muhammadu Buhari/Osinbajo administration in 2016. This paper examined the economic gains, prospects and challenges of the whistle blowing policy in Nigeria. The Role and Framing Theories were adopted in the study to explain the question of morality and persuasiveness through specific communication strategies to the citizens. The methodology used in the study was qualitative deductions from secondary data. The study discovered that the policy has attracted 5,000 tips which led to recovery of several billions of naira. Also discovered, was that there was no law protecting whistle-blowers from victimizations and recriminations. The paper therefore recommends that, the long overdue whistle-blower protection bill of 2011 should be passed into law as an emergency law amongst others
Keywords: Challenges, Corruption, Nigeria, Prospects, Whistle-Blowing, economic gain
Whistle Blowing Policy as a Mechanism for Energizing the ‘War against Corruption’ in Nigeria (Published)
Corruption in Nigeria, just like in many other countries in the world, is an existential problem. Apart from the billions of dollars lost annually to corruption in the public and private sectors, almost all the social, political, ethno-cultural and religious conflicts in Nigeria can be traced to corruption in one way or another. As a tool for fighting corruption, whistle blowing has proven to be effective in many parts of the world. Within the first six months, the Whistle Blowing Policy in Nigeria, officially launched by the Federal Ministry of Finance on December 22, 2016, attracted thousands of tips, some of which led to opening of over 3,000 investigations and the recovery of several billions of naira. However, while the Minister of Information of the Buhari administration, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, applauded the gains from the policy in different forums as evident of the progress being made in the ‘war against corruption’, controversy has continued to trail the conceptual, ethical and implementation frameworks of the policy so far. This paper is an attempt to examine the theoretical foundations of the policy as well as the current application of its provisions against the ultimate objective of fighting corruption in Nigeria. The Ethical Theory of Whistle Blowing, Universal Dignity Theory of Whistle Blowing and Framing Theory were used to structure the postulations of the study. The paper argues that the policy, which is still awaiting the backing of an enabling law at the time of this study, may need to be further tweaked to speak to the issues of ethics, protection of whistle blowers and impactful communication strategies, in order to serve as a potent energizer to the ‘war against corruption’ in Nigeria.
Keywords: Communication Strategies, Corruption, Ethics, Framing, Whistle Blower Protection, Whistle-Blowing