Jega: Why Nigeria’s Whistleblower Policy Is Not Effective

Attahiru Jega, former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says lack of legal framework is one of the major factors working against the efficacy of the country’s whistleblower policy.

Jega spoke on Tuesday at the zonal conference on whistleblower policy in Nigeria for the north-west zone, held in Kano.

The event was organised by the federal ministry of finance, budget and national planning.

“Fear and lack of legal protection and legal backing to get the reward are disincentives for people to volunteer information under the policy,” he said.

He said the policy itself, which is a very “laudable” initiative, needs to be properly contextualised for Nigerians to get the benefits attached to it, adding that because it is a federal policy, implementation at state and local levels are constrained.

He said the fact that it has taken over five years to have a legal framework for the policy shows “our national inertia to fighting corruption”, adding that it will require a lot of effort to get the national assembly to pass the bill.

Aside ensuring the speedy passage of a legal framework, Jega recommended a continuous review, revision, updating and improvement of the policy while drawing appropriate lessons from global best practices.

“In general, review, harmonise, sanitise and improve upon the roles and responsibilities of all anti-corruption agencies with regards to whistleblowing — for instance, interrogate whether the ministry of finance, budget and national planning is ideally the proper MDA to house and implement the whistle blower policy,” he said.

He also recommended that opportunities should be created for “accomplices” to “spill out” against “co-criminals”, while the framework itself should be expanded to be applicable to states and local governments.

“It is not clear what kind of information gives you 2.5 or 5 percent reward which makes it more arbitrary. Transparency in that regard can be very useful in the efficacy of the implementation of the policy,” he said.